Governance in United Kingdom

As well as the primary and secondary stages of education, the Department for Education is responsible for all aspects of policy affecting children and young people. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is responsible for science and innovation, as well as further and higher education and skills.

Department for Education
London
Tel: +44 370 000 2288
Secretary of State: Nicky Morgan
Minister for Schools: David Laws
Minister for School Reform: Nick Gibb
Permanent secretary: Chris Wormald

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

London
Tel: +44 20 7215 5000
Secretary of state: Dr John Vincent ‘Vince’ Cable
Permanent secretary: Martin Donnelly

Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills
London
Tel: +44 300 123 1231
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector: Sir Michael Wilshaw

As well as the primary and secondary stages of education, the Department for Education is responsible for all aspects of policy affecting children and young people. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is responsible for science and innovation, as well as further and higher education and skills.

Public spending on education was 6.2 per cent of GDP in 2010.

Educational reforms in England and Wales in the 1980s and 1990s produced a national curriculum with a uniform programme and allowed schools to manage their own budgets. In the same period throughout the country there has been a massive increase in university education, with the former polytechnics becoming full universities. Payments by university students towards tuition fees were introduced in 1998. About six per cent of all children attend some 2,500 private schools.

On taking office in May 2010, the coalition government set about establishing a new type of publicly-funded all-ability school – the ‘free school’. The government invited charities, universities, businesses, teachers and groups of parents to submit proposals, and the first 24 such schools opened in September 2011. By September 2013, 174 free schools had opened.

Pan-Commonwealth

The UK hosted the First Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in Oxford in 1959 and the 15th Conference in Edinburgh in 2003. Commonwealth education ministers meet every three years to discuss issues of mutual concern and interest.

In January 2009, the British Council/Department for International Development’s Global School Partnerships was selected as a finalist in the 2009 Commonwealth Education Good Practice Awards (CEGPA). By June 2011 some 2,800 partnerships had been forged with schools in 57 developing countries, including many Commonwealth countries, raising awareness among students in the UK and in developing countries of international issues and concerns. At the CEGPA award ceremony, during the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in Kuala Lumpur in June 2009, this project was the winner of the inaugural Steve Sinnott Award for Commonwealth Teachers.