The headteacher of Brighton College has described middle-class parents who move house to be near good schools as "the worst moral hypocrites".

Dr Anthony Seldon made the attack in a speech explaining why he believes all parents should be forced to pay towards their children's education.

He believes means-tested contributions are essential if barriers between state and private sectors are to be broken down.

Calling for the establishment of "partnership schools", he rounded on middle-class parents who spend vast sums buying houses in catchment areas of popular state schools.

Dr Seldon, who wrote the official biography of former prime minister John Major and whose biography of Tony Blair is due to be published in June, has been a supporter of the Government's state and independent school partnership scheme.

However, it "barely addresses the divide between both sectors, which has continued to grow", Dr Seldon told a conference in London today.

He attacked the "conventional wisdom" that says parents who go private are "selfish, not community-minded and are essentially social snobs who choose these schools to keep their children away from the great unwashed".

Many parents of privately educated children were "very ordinary" people who worked hard to save enough money to afford the fees.

He said: "The moral unworthies, I think, are the middle-class parents who squeeze and twist the system for their own advantage to get their own children into the best state schools."

Middle-class parents who abused the assisted places scheme, which has now been phased out, were the "worst moral hypocrites".

"Equally wrong are those middle-class parents who move their homes, paying high premium prices, to get into the catchment areas of desirable state schools," he said.

Echoing the Government's justification for introducing university top-up fees, Dr Seldon said: "General taxation will never provide the funds adequately to provide quality primary and secondary education, any more than it has in higher education.

"However much the Government will continue to improve the state sector, the independent sector will continue to outperform and outspend it."

He said other countries, including Spain and South Africa, operated systems where some children were educated in exclusively state-funded schools, others paid full fees and the rest went to public-private institutions.

His proposal would mean the state providing the "balance" of school funding while parents contributed according to their earnings.

Dr Seldon said teacher unions would oppose the idea and admitted it was not likely to go down well with many parents either.

He said: "Teaching unions will not like means-testing one bit. Nor will many parents, who have always accepted the idea of spending their disposable income, not on school fees, but on other goods and services.

"It will require a revolution in thinking."

But parents who paid fees were more likely to take an active interest in their children's schooling.

"Where there is payment, there is appreciation, where things are given out free, they are valued less," he said.

"Fee-paying parents demand a good service and are closely involved in schools. Research shows that the more involved parents are, the better the performance of the school."

State schools were already charging parents for an increasing number of services every year in an effort to balance their books.

Dr Seldon said 75 per cent of pupils should be educated in partnership schools while about 20 per cent would attend those purely funded by the state.

A "small rump" would go to private schools.

"The parents who would choose these schools would, I imagine, be doing it for purely social reasons," he said.

"I think pundits would be surprised at the very small percentage who are purchasing independent schools for such social reasons - the vast majority do so simply because these schools, they think, offer a better education."

His proposal, if adopted by the Government, would fit with the Prime Minister's support for the concept of "co-payment" for some public services.

But Mr Blair has ruled out asking people to pay for the "core" public services of education and the NHS.

Dr Seldon said: "I am challenging the whole idea of universal free state education.

"I do not believe that it is working. I do not see why the state allows parents to buy goods and services but doesn't allow them to contribute significantly to their children's education in those many cases where school fees are simply a price too high."