SWEDISH politicians who inspired Michael Gove’s schools revolution have turned their backs on education privateers — but stubborn Tories yesterday insisted the free-schools programme is a success.

Teaching unions urged Tories to see sense last night as politicians across Sweden’s political spectrum lined up to savage the role of “venture capitalists” in their education system before the country’s general election next month.

And Labour shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt slammed ministers for knowingly expanding a failed model, following Sweden’s tumble-down on international league tables.

Swedish schools secretary Bertil Ostberg told the Financial Times that the 1990s coalition which introduced the free-schools programme, which included his own right-wing Liberal People’s Party, was “naive” to think they would be run by parents and teachers.

“Now we have got these big companies and they are often owned by venture capitalists and they have seen education as a good way of earning money,” he said.

And he admitted that “free choice has led to bigger differences between schools.”

Mr Hunt told the Morning Star: “David Cameron told us that adopting the Swedish free schools model was the answer to raising school standards. This is not the case.

“The for-profit free school model in Sweden has contributed to declining standards and rising educational inequality. And we know this is where the Tories want to take schooling.”

National Union of Teachers deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney said: “Despite the lessons from Sweden quite clearly showing that the fragmentation and privatisation of education systems does not work, the government continues to hand over schools to unaccountable sponsors and allows more free schools to open.

“We need to see a return to an accountable education system with a central role for local authorities.”

A Department for Education spokesman said: “Free schools are giving thousands of children from ordinary backgrounds the kind of education previously reserved for the rich and the lucky — with two thirds in some of the most deprived areas of the country.”

But he refused to comment on developments in Sweden.

New Tory education secretary Nicky Morgan, who replaced Mr Gove in a cabinet reshuffle last month, affirmed her commitment to the free-schools programme shortly after taking office.