GORDON Brown has been accused of talking down and endangering Scotland's distinctive education system.

The former Prime Minister cited surveys of 14 to 17-year-olds as part of the What Scotland Thinks project which showed around half would prefer to be part of a UK system.

Asked in 2013 if exams and the curriculum should be the same for everyone in the UK 51 per cent agreed. This year 46 per cent agreed. On whether the Scottish Parliament should be able to decide these issues North of the Border, the figure went up from 47 to 52 per cent.

At an event in Edinburgh University's McEwan Hall in honour of historian Sir Tom Devine, Mr Brown said: "Scottish young people's support for the same educational curriculum and exams across the UK is stronger than any poll would report for any group of adults, showing that young people are not the newly enfranchised 'nationalist generation' of the independence movement's dreams but a newly enfranchised and also newly empowered 'networked generation' - happy to be seen as Scottish first but suspicious of being seen as exclusively Scottish."

The SNP's Kenneth Gibson called it another "own goal".

"In bizarrely arguing against having the Scottish education system, Gordon Brown makes the Yes case for us," he said. "If education was controlled by Westminster, not in the Scottish Parliament, Michael Gove would be deciding education policy for Scotland.

"I doubt if a single person in Scotland would want that, other than Gordon Brown."