A SCHOOL that requires pupils to practise Beatles-style meditation will receive government cash to expand – even as scores of Merseyside secondaries are starved of money for rebuilding.

The private Maharishi school, in Ormskirk, where children meditate twice a day in the belief it helps them learn, will become a “free school” in the state sector – allowing it to scrap annual £7,600 fees.

The school – the only one in Britain that follows the teachings on transcendental meditation of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, made famous by the Fab Four – will then receive funds to more than double in size.

The move comes after 58 crumbling Merseyside secondaries had their hopes of rebuilding schemes dashed, when the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme was axed as too costly.

Last night, the decision was attacked by John Pugh, the Liberal Democrat MP for Southport, as the starkest evidence yet of the unfairness of government schools policy.

Dr Pugh said: "We need to get the education system in better shape before we give government subsidy to what is a really eccentric choice of school.

"It seems very bizarre to fund a school of this sort, when we have fundamental needs at mainstream schools."

And Liverpool council leader Joe Anderson also attacked the funding of the Maharishi School, saying: "I think it's government ministers who are practising transcendental meditation techniques. I have been waiting 12 months for them to reply to me since they withdrew funding for Building Schools for the Future. It's very frustrating when they support free schools, but not good local authority schools."