The academy experiment should be continued, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) education expert.

Andreas Schleicher, who is responsible for the international Pisa tests, told MPs in a session on England's education system that the most successful models find a way to bring local autonomy to schools without losing strong public accountability.

He added there was a global trend that linked local flexibility for schools to good results, explaining this means England's academy system was a "promising" step.

Trying to identify the features that had been successful elsewhere, Mr Schleicher said head teachers need "local discretion" while a country's education profession needs to share expectations of high standards.

The OECD chief did tell the House of Commons Education Select Committee simple autonomy on its own was not a surefire way of improving exam results and school standards.

"You need a very strong education system to make autonomy work, you can't leave it to market forces alone," he said.

In England, autonomous academies are now widespread. Indeed, they are the most common type of secondary school, but there has been much debate about whether flexibility has displaced accountability in the UK's system as a whole.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, wants to be able to investigate chains that run numerous academies in the same way the watchdog can assess local authorities, while Labour has promised that it will make everyone employed in an academy teaching job attain qualified teacher status if it wins the next election.

Mr Schleicher explained the most successful school systems make heavy investments in teacher training and professional development as the correlation between teacher status and school success is strong. The education system in Pisa-topping Shanghai requires teachers to take part in constant training and updating of their skills.

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