Department For Education And Skills (United Kingdom)
The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was a United Kingdom government department between 2001 and 2007. It was responsible for the education system and children's services in England. On 28 June 2007 the department was split in two by Gordon Brown's government. The Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills took over its responsibilities. In 2010, when the Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition Government took control, Michael Gove became Secretary of State for Education. His department is the Department for Education.
DfES worked under the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. The main remit of the Department could be summed up as schools and adult learning - but there were also sections dealing with linked areas such as child welfare.
DfES civil servants worked in either one of four locations: London (Sanctuary Buildings or Caxton House, both close to Westminster Abbey), Sheffield (Moorfoot), Darlington (Mowden Hall), or Runcorn (Castle View House) - as well as in the regional Government Offices.
Education is a devolved issue and therefore the responsibility of other government departments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Scotland - Education and Lifelong Learning Directorate
- Wales - Department for Education, Lifelong Learning, and Skills (DELLS)
- Northern Ireland - Department of Education (Northern Ireland) and Department for Employment and Learning
Read more about Department For Education And Skills (United Kingdom): History, Ministers, Permanent Secretary
Famous quotes containing the words department, education and/or skills:
“The African race evidently are made to excel in that department which lies between the sensuousness and the intellectual—what we call the elegant arts. These require rich and abundant animal nature, such as they possess; and if ever they become highly civilised, they will excel in music, dancing and elocution.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“Play for young children is not recreation activity,... It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity.... Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)