Bradford could have the country's first privately sponsored Islamic city academy as part of a massive shake-up of its state schools.

A senior Government officer said Bradford schools needed "a radical solution" to end a history of low standards of achievement.

Sir Bruce Liddington, the head of the Department for Education and Skills new projects unit, said the Government wanted to replace schools with "multiple" city academies in Bradford.And he revealed that talks had taken place with Muslim community groups who were interested in providing the £2 million sponsorship for a city academy - which would be the first of its kind in the country.

The Government introduced city academies in 2002 to transform struggling inner city schools and has planned to open 200 across the country .

Academies are privately sponsored, independently run state schools. To become an academy a school has to find a private sponsor to provide £2 million to release a further £20 million cash from the Department of Education and Skills to pay for a new school building or a major refurbishment.

In Bradford, Dixons City Technology College in West Bowling became the district's first city academy at the start of this term. Bradford Cathedral Community College in East Bowling will become Bradford Academy in 2007, backed by the social action charity TocH.

Sir Bruce said the Government had identified Bradford as an area where more schools would benefit from "the academy solution".

He said: "We are going to the 20 per cent most deprived areas in the country, to education authorities where less than 50 per cent of pupils achieve five A to C GCSE grades, schools that have been in special measures for a year or more, that's why we are in Bradford.

"We are looking at multiple academies."

He declined to reveal how many Bradford schools the government wanted to turn into city academies or who the potential sponsors were.

But he said discussions with Muslim groups in Bradford about sponsoring a city academy was in line with Education Secretary Ruth Kelly's plan to create more faith schools.

An event is being planned this year to allow interested parties to find out more about becoming the academy backers in Bradford.

Sir Bruce was in Bradford today to debate the future of city academies in the district.