Education Act 1994
| Year | 1994 |
Education Act 1994
1994 CHAPTER 30
An Act to make provision about teacher training and related matters; to make provision with respect to the conduct of students' unions; and for connected purposes.
[21st July 1994]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part I
Teacher Training
The Teacher Training Agency
1 The Teacher Training Agency.
(1) There shall be established a body corporate to be known as the Teacher Training Agency to exercise—
(a) their functions as a funding agency under this Part,
(b) the function of providing information and advice on teaching as a career, and
(c) such other functions as may be conferred on them by or under this Part.
(2) The objectives of the agency in exercising their functions shall be—
(a) to contribute to raising the standards of teaching;
(b) to promote teaching as a career;
(c) to improve the quality and efficiency of all routes into the teaching profession;
(d) to secure the involvement of schools in all courses and programmes for the initial training of school teachers;
and generally to secure that teachers are well fitted and trained to promote the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and to prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.
(3) Except where corresponding functions in relation to Wales are conferred on another person or body, the functions of the agency are exercisable in relation to England and Wales generally; but the agency shall not do anything in relation to Wales, or institutions or students in Wales, except at the request of the Secretary of State.
2 Membership, &c. of the agency.
(1) The Teacher Training Agency shall consist of between eight and twelve members appointed by the Secretary of State, of whom one shall be so appointed as chairman.
(2) In appointing the members of the agency the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of including persons who appear to him—
(a) to have experience of, and to have shown capacity in—
(i) teaching in schools,
(ii) teaching in higher education (other than training teachers), or
(iii) training teachers, or
(b) to have held, and to have shown capacity in, any position carrying responsibility for—
(i) the provision of education in schools,
(ii) the provision of higher education (other than the training of teachers), or
(iii) the training of teachers;
and in appointing such persons he shall have regard to the desirability of their being currently engaged in the provision of, or in carrying responsibility for, such matters.
(3) In considering the appointment of members in accordance with subsection (2) the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of including persons whose relevant experience or responsibility is, or was, in or in relation to—
(a) institutions of a denominational character, or
(b) teaching persons with special educational needs.
(4) In appointing the members of the agency the Secretary of State shall also have regard to the desirability of including persons who appear to him to have experience of, and to have shown capacity in, industrial, commercial or financial matters or the practice of any profession.
(5) Schedule 1 has effect with respect to the agency.
Funding
3 The funding agencies.
(1) Any reference in this Part to a funding agency is—
(a) in relation to institutions in England, to the Teacher Training Agency, and
(b) in relation to institutions in Wales, to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.
(2) The references above to institutions in England and in Wales are to institutions whose activities are carried on, or principally carried on, in England or, as the case may be, in Wales; but both references include the Open University.
Any dispute as to which funding agency any functions are exercisable by shall be determined by the Secretary of State.
(3) The funding agencies shall be responsible for administering funds made available to them by the Secretary of State and others for the purpose of providing financial support for the carrying on by eligible institutions of qualifying activities.
4 Qualifying activities and eligible institutions.
(1) The activities qualifying for funding under this Part (‘qualifying activities’) are—
(a) the provision of teacher training;
(b) the provision of facilities, and the carrying on of other activities, by eligible institutions which the governing bodies of the institutions consider it necessary or desirable to provide or carry on for the purpose of or in connection with activities within paragraph (a);
(c) the provision by any person of services for the purposes of, or in connection with, such activities.
(2) The institutions eligible for funding under this Part (‘eligible institutions’) are—
(a) any institution within the higher or further education sector,
(b) any school, and
(c) any other institution or body designated by order of the Secretary of State,
and any partnership or association of eligible institutions, or body established by one or more such institutions, for the purpose of carrying on qualifying activities.
(3) The Secretary of State may by order provide for references in this Part to the governing body of an institution, in relation to an institution which is conducted by a company, to be read as references to the governing body provided for in the instrument of government, or to the company or to both.
(4) In relation to a nursery school which is maintained by a local education authority references in this Part to the governing body shall be construed as references to the authority.
5 Grants, loans and other payments.
(1) A funding agency may—
(a) make grants, loans or other payments in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred by the governing body of an eligible institution for the purposes of activities qualifying for funding under this Part by virtue of section 4(1)(a) or (b), and
(b) make grants, loans or other payments in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred for the purposes of the provision of services as mentioned in section 4(1)(c),
subject in each case to such terms and conditions as the funding agency think fit.
(2) The terms and conditions on which a funding agency may make any grants, loans or other payments under this section may in particular—
(a) enable the funding agency to require the repayment, in whole or in part, of sums paid by the agency if any of the terms and conditions subject to which the sums were paid is not complied with, and
(b) require the payment of interest in respect of any period during which a sum due to the funding agency in accordance with any of the terms and conditions remains unpaid.
(3) The terms and conditions shall not relate to the application of any sums derived otherwise than from a funding agency.
(4) In exercising their functions under this section a funding agency shall have regard—
(a) generally, to any forecasts of demand for newly-qualified teachers notified to them by the Secretary of State; and
(b) in relation to any particular institution, to any assessment of the quality of education provided by the institution—
(i) made by either of Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors of Schools, or
(ii) to which the agency think it appropriate to have regard or to which the Secretary of State directs them to have regard.
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