The founder of the Wikipedia online encyclopaedia criticised the Education Secretary yesterday for suggesting that the website could be a good educational tool for children. Mr Johnson described the internet as 'an incredible force for good in education' for teachers and pupils, singling out Wikipedia for praise. But Larry Sanger, who helped to found Wikipedia in 2001, said that the site was 'broken beyond repair' and no longer reliable.

Wikipedia is among the top ten most visited sites on the internet, containing more than six million articles contributed only by members of the public. But it has been criticised for being riddled with inaccuracies and nonsense. Last month it was revealed that a prominent and long-standing Wikipedia contributor had lied about his identity, having claimed to be a tenured university professor, when he was in fact a 24-year-old college drop-out.

Concerned about the website's integrity, Mr Sanger left Wikipedia, and two weeks ago launched an online encyclopaedia called Citizendium.org, which he said would be monitored and edited by academics and experts as well as accepting public contributions. He told The Times: "I'm afraid that Mr Johnson does not realise the many problems afflicting Wikipedia, from serious management problems, to an often dysfunctional community, to frequently unreliable content, and to a whole series of scandals. While Wikipedia is still quite useful and an amazing phenomenon, I have come to the view that it is also broken beyond repair."

He may be right, or he may be pimping his own site :-)