Bradford's education results could be the best in any major British city within ten years, the district's new schools boss pledged today.

Education Bradford's new managing director Mark Pattison said the district would rise to the top of the country's exam league tables within ten years as he took the helm on the district's privatised education service.

Mr Pattison, who has come to Bradford from across the Pennines in Blackburn on a six-figure salary package, said meeting national averages was not enough.

"We need to be the best," he said. "My long term ambition is for Bradford to be the best-performing major city in the country."

At the moment Bradford languishes near the bottom of school league tables and is rock bottom at primary school level.

The contract won by private firm Serco demands that Bradford's results should have reached national averages by 2005.

"Our aim is to get Bradford first of all up to, then beyond, the national averages in terms of achievement. It's a tall order, but it's possible to do it - I have no doubt about that," said Mr Pattison.

"If you look at cities of a similar make-up and size to ours - places like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol - you have got a quite wide variety of levels of achievement. Leeds, for example, has achievement levels significantly above Bradford's."

He added: "I am not hung-up on precise time scales, because this is not a quick fix, although there are some things that we can do that will make a noticeable difference quite quickly."

He said innovative methods would be quickly employed to turn around performance in Bradford schools.

Some methods will be the same as those used at Blackburn Council in his previous role, where the education authority earned the reputation as one of the best in the country. It won Beacon status in the field of school improvement.

Successful methods developed in other parts of the UK and abroad will be adopted, especially in the crucial area of helping youngsters from ethnic minority backgrounds, who under-perform in exams.

"The learners of Bradford deserve the very best. They have been let down in the past - we have to make sure that doesn't happen in the future," said Mr Pattison.

"It's important for the life chances of these individuals, but also important for the community of Bradford and for our society as a whole.

"Bradford is an urban, multicultural community, and we have got to be able to show that these communities can be successful, and that people can succeed from a whole range of backgrounds."

He moved to praise the efforts of local teaching staff, adding: "It's arguably the most important job in the country and they are not valued sufficiently - we need to get that right, I think."