Iain Duncan Smith has launched a broadside against the government's education reforms.

The opposition leader was on Monday evening set to attack the government's record by claiming that standards have been "dumbed down" and are now meaningless.

Speaking to the Bow Group he was expected to say that schools and universities have been undermined by a "corrosive" pursuit of egalitarianism and that slipping standards were "letting down our future as a nation".

He cited two reasons for falling education standards; over-centralisation and a failure to teach basic skills such as reading, writing and mathematics.

Standards had fallen because Labour "introduced into our education system a notional egalitarianism that was meretricious, pernicious and corrosive".

"As Conservatives we need to speak openly and honestly about the damage egalitarianism has done to our children and will go on doing unless we take the measures necessary to counter it," he said.

"At its simplest, egalitarianism means making our children more equal by dumbing-down our education system to the point where standards become meaningless because everyone can achieve them."

Duncan Smith said that under his leadership the party would challenge such thinking.

"We cannot achieve excellence if no one is allowed to excel," he said.

"The best way to drive up standards is to give teachers responsibility for results, and make them account to parents for those results."

Innovation in education could come from local authorities, but if they prove unable to deliver than the party "will find groups who can".

"They may be charities, they may be faith-based organisations, they may be private companies. Whatever the case, if a sufficient number of parents demands it, we will allow them to establish new schools, and to offer full state scholarships to inner city pupils.

"These new schools will offer new hope to inner-city families. Beyond these areas, Conservatives will allow good schools to grow and let bad ones close. Our policies will be about encouraging and rewarding success, not excusing and entrenching failure," he said.

Duncan Smith rejected one idea, floated by the government, for the introduction of an English baccalaureate to replace A Levels.

"We will start by scrapping the AS levels, unloved by teachers, pupils and parents alike.

"We will make the exam watchdog politically independent, like the Bank of England so that no minister can ever again meddle with children's grades.

"And we will restore the A Level as the gold standard that parents, employers and students can count on once again," Duncan Smith pledged.