MINISTERS are treating school pupils as if they were business products to be managed rather than children to be educated, an Oxford University study has suggested.

The Nuffield Review of 14-19 education said the Government's aim of boosting the British economy was overshadowing the true role of schools in young people's lives.

Businesses increasingly run state schools and can even award their own A-level equivalent qualifications, as in the recent case of McDonald's.

The lead author of the report, Oxford's Professor Richard Pring, said: "The changes at 14-19 are too often driven by economic goals at the expense of broader educational aims.

"This is reflected in the rather impoverished language drawn from business and management, rather than from a more generous understanding of the whole person.

"We need to give young learners far more than skills for employment alone, even if such skills are key to the country's economy."

The Nuffield report said the broader aims of education were neglected, there was a "risk of damaging the values that define an educated and humane society".

It criticised the use of terms such as "inputs", "targets" and "curriculum delivery" in education.

"The boundaries between running a school and running a business can easily become confused," the study said.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families dismissed the report. "This depressing view of education is simply not one that we recognise," he said.