Government 'troubleshooters' have been drafted in to help improve some of the county's poorest secondary schools.

It comes after figures showed Kent has the highest number of schools of anywhere in the country failing to meet nationally-expected targets for GCSE results.

Now Education Secretary Ed Balls has demanded action.

The target as been set as part of the Government’s National Challenge initiative aimed at driving up standards at the country’s poorest secondary schools.

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Mr Balls said Kent’s selective system was no excuse for the fact Kent has 20 secondary schools – about one in five - failing to meet the Government’s minimum target for 30 per cent of pupils to pass five or more good GCSEs that include maths and English.

If the Government is not satisfied by KCC’s blueprint to tackle under-achievement, Mr Balls could order emergency inspections or demand changes in Governing bodies.

He said: "We have powers to intervene if we’re not seeing the improvements we need. More than 20 per cent of the secondary schools in Kent are below the floor we have set. We would like all of them to clear the floor by 2011."

While he accepted it may be harder for non-selective schools to improve, the fact that Kent had the highest number of grammar schools should not be an excuse, he said.

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"I've always said that non-selective schools in selective areas face extra challenges. It's harder but it's not necessarily harder because there's more deprivation or it can't be done. There's no doubt in my mind that if you have a new cohort of young people who have all arrived in secondary school having been told that they didn't succeed then you have greater issues around aspiration and belief."

But the move provoked a furious response from the Conservative leader of KCC. Cllr Paul Carter said the Government had delivered "a kick in the guts" to schools and that Mr Balls had failed to acknowledge year-on-year improvements in GCSE results.

"There are one or two schools I do have concerns about but the vast majority of high schools are doing an exceptional job and Ed Balls has given them a big kick in the guts."

Under the Government’s National Challenge initiative, 33 schools in Kent have already received tens of thousands of pounds for initiatives to lift classroom standards.

While a third of those have already reached the Government’s benchmark ahead of schedule, the rest are falling short, including some of Kent’s flagship academy schools.

Recent GCSE results showed that 51.6 percent of Kent students gaining five A* to C grades including English and Maths this year, up 1.8 percent on last year.