The opposition rounded on Holyrood Ministers yesterday over the decision to end the Schools of Ambition programme at the end of the current spending round.

After The Herald revealed that the programme giving special support to 52 schools would end there was a political furore, and at Holyrood yesterday the government found itself isolated.

Labour, which devised the scheme, were backed by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, but ministers insisted that it was right to wind up the scheme and then apply its lessons to the rest of the country's schools.

"No amount of SNP rhetoric today can change the fact that the SNP plans to dump this scheme," said Labour education spokeswoman Rhona Brankin.

"The Schools of Ambition programme has demonstrated that targeted investment can build aspirations, unleash potential and raise standards."

The scheme was launched three years ago and billionaire philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter had been one of the first private backers to get behind the flagship project of the last Labour-LibDem administration's education policy.

Schools given a poor evaluation in HMIE reports were among those brought on to the scheme. The schools receive £100,000 a year from the public purse and were expected to seek funds from private sources.

The government is committed to funding all 52 schools currently in the scheme, but Ms Brankin said this is not new investment from the administration. "They are simply giving schools the money that was already committed to them by the previous Labour-led executive."

Ms Brankin claimed that St Ninian's High School, a School of Ambition, has recently received a glowing inspectors' report, but Schools Minister Maureen Watt accused her of getting her facts wrong, saying: "The St Ninian's that got the excellent school report is St Ninian's in East Renfrewshire - the school of ambition is St Ninian's in East Dunbartonshire. So we can take everything she says with a pinch of salt."

Ms Watt said the government would be funding the existing Schools of Ambition throughout the course of the current spending review. The intention with the programme was to support "fast track" transformation in selected secondary schools.

Schools involved in the programme would act as "flagships", the minister said, in their local area and nationally. She also cited concerns about the scheme at their outset, citing comments from David Eaglesham, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, who branded them a "cosmetic exercise."

The Schools of Ambition would provide a "rich source of learning" which would then apply to all schools, according to the minister. "It is my expectation that this learning will enable all schools to become Schools of Ambition.

"It is our aim to make this the main focus of our sharing strategy and to raise awareness of the learning opportunities available through the Schools of Ambition in a variety of ways to reach as many different audiences as possible."

She claimed that the government is backed in this by the Hunter Foundation which has "pledged its help".

Tory education spokesman Murdo Fraser said: "It's deplorable because this programme has been a success. I deeply regret it is about to come to an end."

The Conservative MSP suggested party politics may be one reason for this, as the initiative had been introduced by the previous Labour/LibDem executive. But he argued that there was perhaps "something more sinister" going on. Mr Fraser said: "We know the SNP are wedded to the one-size-fits-all principle in Scottish education. They find the idea of any diversity within school education deeply offensive."

LibDem schools spokesman Hugh O'Donnell pointed out the SNP government had made great play of talk about ambition, adding: "I'm sure I'm not the only one that detects a note of irony in the fact that the first overt SNP cut to our education system has actually been inflicted on a success called Schools of Ambition. What are these people about?"