The Learning and Skills Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It made changes in the funding and administration of further education, and of work-based learning (or apprenticeships) for young people, within England and Wales.
The main changes were:
- establishment of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), its duties to secure the provision of education and training for young people and adults, in England, and to encourage employers and individuals to participate, and the LSC's funding powers.
- provisions for the appointment of governors in the further education sector.
- other duties and powers of the LSC, including equal opportunities and the needs of people with learning difficulties, powers to provide information, advice and guidance services and a duty to publish its strategy and annual plans.
- the establishment of local Learning and Skills Councils, including planning and consultation arrangements and the power of the Secretary of State to make directions to local education authorities in respect of adult and community learning provision.
- creation of the LSC’s Young People’s and Adult Learning Committees.
- creation of academies (originally known as "city academies"), publicly funded schools operating outside of local government control and with a significant degree of autonomy areas such as wages and digressing from the national curriculum.
- powers for the Secretary of State to give directions to the LSC, to pay it its annual grant-in-aid and require the LSC to make an annual report.
- similar arrangements for Wales.
The Act also established arrangements for Inspections of further education in England and Wales, and abolished the Further Education Funding Council for England.
Famous quotes containing the words learning, skills and/or act:
“Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.”
—Bible: New Testament Acts, 26:24.
Said by Festus, the Roman Procurator.
“Many women are reluctant to allow men to enter their domain. They don’t want men to acquire skills in what has traditionally been their area of competence and one of their main sources of self-esteem. So while they complain about the male’s unwillingness to share in domestic duties, they continually push the male out when he moves too confidently into what has previously been their exclusive world.”
—Bettina Arndt (20th century)
“The experience of a sense of guilt for wrong-doing is necessary for the development of self-control. The guilt feelings will later serve as a warning signal which the child can produce himself when an impulse to repeat the naughty act comes over him. When the child can produce his on warning signals, independent of the actual presence of the adult, he is on the way to developing a conscience.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)