2.4 The Education Acts

The 1993 Education Act (27 July 1993) was based partly on the 1992 white paper and partly on the 1993 Dearing Report. It was the largest piece of legislation in the history of education. Its first five parts covered:

• I Responsibility for education (roles of the secretary of state and funding authorities; new rules about school places, admissions and religious education);

• II Grant-maintained schools (changes in funding and new rules to make it easier for schools to become grant-maintained);

• III Children with special educational needs (legal definition, Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs - came into force in 1994);

• IV School attendance (attendance orders, parental choice of school);

• V Schools failing to give an acceptable standard of education ('special measures').

Part VI Miscellaneous covered a huge range of matters including:

• establishment of new schools by local authorities and other 'promoters';

• nursery education in grant-maintained schools;

• rationalisation of school places;

• incorporation of governing bodies;

• the right of parents to withdraw a child from sex education lessons except those contained in the National Curriculum - the science curriculum was to be revised to exclude anything on HIV and AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and aspects of human sexual behaviour;

• the abolition of the National Curriculum Council (NCC) and the School Examinations and Assessment Council (SEAC) and their replacement by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA);

• agreed syllabuses for religious education to be reviewed;

• new rules on pupil exclusions;

• provision of information about city technology colleges;

• admission appeals committees;

• revision of local management funding schemes;

• clarification of the period of compulsory schooling (5-16);

• education support grants;

• charges for musical instrument tuition;

• assistance for voluntary schools;

• amendment of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 (Section 47) to prohibit 'inhuman or degrading' punishments; and

• abolition of the requirement for local authorities to have education committees.

1994 Education Act

The 1994 Education Act (21 July 1994) made provision for the establishment of the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and laid down regulations concerning the conduct of student unions.

1996 Education (Student Loans) Act

The Education (Student Loans) Act (29 April 1996) extended the provision of student loans.

1996 Education Act

The 1996 Education Act (24 July 1996) was another huge piece of legislation (557 pages) which mainly consolidated all previous education acts since 1944.

1996 Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Act

The 1996 Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Act (24 July 1996) introduced a voucher scheme for nursery education (which was unsuccessful and was later withdrawn by Labour) and allowed governors of grant-maintained schools to borrow money.

1996 School Inspections Act

The 1996 School Inspections Act (24 July 1996) consolidated previous legislation on school inspections.

1997 Education Act

The passage through Parliament of the 1997 Education Act (21 March 1997) was affected by the forthcoming general election, which the Tories were expected to lose. However, it was still a wide-ranging Act. Among its provisions, it

• extended the assisted places scheme to primary schools ;

• gave governors new responsibilities in relation to discipline and behaviour;

• allowed teachers to use 'such force as is reasonable' to restrain pupils;

• allowed teachers to detain pupils after school without parents' consent ;

• raised the limit for periods of exclusion from 15 to 45 days ;

• required local authorities to prepare plans for dealing with children with behavioural difficulties;

• amended the admission rules for selective schools ;

• amended the admission rules for children who had been permanently excluded from two or more schools ;

• allowed schools to require parents to sign home-school partnership agreements ;

• provided for 'baseline assessment schemes' ;

• allowed the secretary of state to require governors to set annual performance targets for pupils ;

• abolished the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) and the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) and replaced them with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and a similar body for Wales;

• gave the secretary of state control over courses leading to external qualifications ;

• gave the secretary of state the right to order inspections of local authorities ;

• required all pupils to be provided with a programme of careers education ;

• made changes to the governance of pupil referral units ;

• limited access to pupils by non-employed adults;