There are a wide variety of government departments and organisations that are key stakeholders in the UK education market. This section summarises the roles and responsibilities of a key selection of these.
Government departments
The government departments responsible for education in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are as follows:
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) – England
National Assembly for Wales Training and Education (NATED) – Wales
Department of Education, Northern Ireland (DENI) and Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DELNI) – Northern Ireland
Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) and Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department (ETLLD) – Scotland
Qualifications, curriculum and assessment authorities
Each of the four countries in the UK has its own qualifications, curriculum and assessment authority, they are as follows:
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) – England
Qualification, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales (ACCAC) – Wales
Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) – Northern Ireland
These authorities give advice on the school curriculum, examination and pupil assessment.
Other organisations
British Educational Communications and Technology Agency
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) is an organisation set up to support all four UK government education departments. Their aim is to aid the application of ICT to support learning by guiding and coordinating changes in policy and practice.
Becta also operate the Content Advisory Board (CAB), which was set up to ensure that Curriculum Online offers a consistent and coherent range of products and to assess the impact of e-Learning Credits . The CAB consists of representatives from each of the four government education departments, as well as individuals from schools, universities and other organisations.
British Educational Suppliers Association
British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) is a trade association representing manufacturers and distributors of equipment, materials, books, consumables, furniture, technology, ICT hardware and digital content to the education market.
Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS)
LTS’s role is to provide independent advice to Scottish Ministers, to give direction and provide support to education practitioners, to improve the quality of education in Scotland, and to encourage the creative and effective use of ICT in education. LTS is also actively involved in web development, software and multimedia production and manages the implementation of the National Grid for learning in Scotland .
National Grid for Learning
The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) portal is a gateway to educational resources on the internet. It provides a network of selected links to websites that aims to offer high quality content and information for teachers to use. It is managed on behalf of the DfES by Becta.
Learning and Skills Council
The Learning and Skills Council is responsible for all post-16 education and training other than in universities. Established in 2001, the Council brings together the skills of the Training and Enterprise Councils and the Further Education Funding Council and has a budget of £8.0 billion (2003-04). The Council operates through 47 local offices and a national office in Coventry. Established in April 2001 their work covers further education, work-based training and young people, school sixth forms, workforce development, adult and community learning, information, advice and guidance for adults, education business links.
Local Education Authorities
Local Education Authorities (LEAs) are the bodies responsible for the local administration of state sector education services in England and Wales. There are in total 150 in England and eight in Wales based on county boundaries, unitary authority, metropolitan district or London borough.
In Northern Ireland, local education administration is the responsibility of five Education and Library Boards ( Belfast, North Eastern, South Eastern, Southern, Western), which each cover one or more complete district council areas.
In Scotland, education administration is the responsibility of local government (i.e. the councils in each council area); there are 32 in total.
The Higher Standards, Better Schools for All white paper puts forward a new role for local authorities in England. It states that, “the local authority [will become] a powerful champion of parents and pupils in their area, commissioning rather than providing education.”
Regional Broadband Consortium (RBCs)
RBCs are consortia of LEAs that were originally established to procure cost-effective broadband connectivity for schools. They also have a role to link together to form a National Education Network and promote the development of content for broadband networks.
There are 10 RBCs covering all areas of England . These consortia are key players in the procurement of Internet services, broadband infrastructure and content for LEAs and schools in their regions. They are all under different stages of development with a variety of content freely available and increasingly provide local advice and support.
In June 2005, 81% of schools (99% of Secondary schools and 78% of Primary schools) had broadband Internet access. The Prime M inister has announced that by 2006, all schools should be connected at a minimum of 2 M bps, with Secondary schools ideally connected at 8 M bps or higher.
