London, England - Thousands of children in Britain must take part in random lotteries for a place in school, in a government attempt to break a middle-class stranglehold on the best schools.

A report in The Daily Telegraph on Friday said schools in a quarter of the 150 council areas in Britain have been allocating places either by lottery or 'fair banding' - in which the school uses test results to deliberately select a proportion of pupils of poor ability.

The methods, now practised in at least 37 councils, mean that of the 600,000 pupils applying for school admission in September, up to 150,000 of them may effectively have their futures decided 'by the roll of a dice'.

The policy is designed to make all state schools truly comprehensive by ensuring they contain pupils of mixed abilities and social backgrounds, rather than being dominated by those who can afford to live nearby. However, it can cause difficulties for affluent families who have dominated successful schools by buying houses within their catchment areas.

Critics say the methods amount to social engineering and threaten misery for many middle-class families. Children can be forced to travel several kilometres every day after being turned down by their local school.

'There is something mildly offensive about a child's future being decided by nothing more than the roll of a dice,' said Mr Robert Mc-

Cartney, the head of the National Grammar Schools Association.

But a spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said these options were meant to ensure fair admissions.

Mr Mark Willimott, a senior assistant principal at Brooke Weston Academy in Corby, Northamptonshire, which adopted random allocation last year, said: 'If you are just going to draw a straight line from the school, you are going to get the problem of rich parents buying houses on the local estate and sending up house prices.'

However, shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said the opposition Tories would prevent the local authorities from enforcing lotteries in the future, calling them an 'unsatisfactory' way of assigning places.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.