Education Secretary Michael Gove has been forced to apologise for releasing a list riddled with mistakes about which school building projects would face the axe.

The list -- released on Monday, after the coalition government said it would scrap Labour's £55 billion Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme -- contained the names of 1,500 schools whose building plans would be affected. Of those, 715 schools were told their projects would be cancelled.

But there were 25 mistakes in the Department for Education list, prompting outrage among teachers, pupils, parents and politicians. Gove said he was grateful for the opportunity "to unreservedly apologise" for sending out "inaccurate information".

"In particular there were schools which were listed as proceeding, when in fact their re-build will not now go ahead," he told MPs on Wednesday. "That confusion caused members of the public understandable distress and concern, and I wish to take full personal responsibility for that regrettable error."

A new, corrected list has since been sent out and Gove has urged any schools still concerned about their status to contact him personally.

Gove also said he was sorry for the confusion surrounding the manner in which he would make his apology, following media reports he would write to Commons Speaker John Bercow instead of making a full apology to the House in person.

Shadow education minister Vernon Coaker thanked Gove for his statement.

"It is right that he has apologised to this House but he should also apologise to all the pupils and parents and teachers expecting new buildings who have now had them cruelly snatched away," he said.

The Guardian's politics blogger Andrew Sparrow said Gove "produced one of the most grovelling apologies ever heard from the dispatch box in modern times."

Under the original BSF scheme, set up by Labour in 2004, all 3,500 secondary schools in England were to be rebuilt or refurbished by 2023.

But Gove said the scheme had been marred by overspending, delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy.