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In England, a City Technology College (CTC) is an urban all-ability specialist school for students aged 11 to 18 specialising in science, technology and mathematics. They charge no fees and are independent of local authority control, being overseen directly by the Department for Education. One fifth of the capital costs are met by private business sponsors, who also own or lease the buildings. The rest of the capital costs, and all running costs, are met by the Department.
Description
CTCs operate as limited companies with articles of association and a board of governors. A CTC is governed through an operating agreement made between the Secretary of State for Education and whoever is responsible for establishing and running the school. This agreement includes the regulations for the school's educational provision (e.g. its curriculum and admissions policy). These are negotiated between the two parties and must be enforced by the school should it wish to receive government funding from the Secretary of State. This funding covers most capital costs and all running costs, although one fifth of capital costs are instead met by private business sponsors, who also own or lease the buildings.
CTCs teach the National Curriculum, but specialise in mainly technology-based subjects such as technology, science and mathematics.
Like maintained schools, they are regularly inspected by the Office for Standards in Education. CTCs also forge close links with businesses and industry (mainly through their sponsors), and often their governors are directors of local or national businesses that are supporting or have supported the colleges. The programme has been successful in the long term with all the CTCs being considered strong establishments with consistently high academic results. These plans were the brainchild of Schools Minister Bob Dunn, who had been pushing the Secretary of State for Education and Science Keith Joseph to introduce British magnet schools, with the ultimate aim of encouraging specialisation and increased parental choice in the education system. These schools, if introduced, would be known as technology-plus schools, specialist schools for technology with extra funding from private sector sponsors. The twenty business leaders explained to Thatcher that the cause of youth unemployment was schools teaching the wrong skills to their pupils. They recommended, with Taylor, the creation of a hundred secondary schools similar to Bob Dunn's proposed technology-plus schools to deal with this issue. They would be urban inner city specialist schools for technological and technical education, funded by the central government via direct grant legislation and independent of local authority control, instead being partially controlled by private sector sponsors investing into them. Taylor thought that these schools could meet the growing demands for business qualifications in the workforce and also proposed a new provision for teacher training in these schools to combat the ongoing teacher shortage at the time.
A new Secretary of State for Education and Science, Kenneth Baker, was appointed on 21 May 1986. An advocate of technical education and technology in general, Baker was drawn towards the concept of schools for information technology, Now in his position as Education Secretary, Baker wished to further improve digital learning and computing in the education system, and wanted to introduce schools for computing and information technology as a way to do so. In addition, schools for general technology were expected to give pupils the correct skills for employment, which supported the recommendations made some months prior by Cyril Taylor and his business leaders.
The policy for the schools proposed in January's meeting, dubbed City Technology Colleges or simply CTCs, was developed in the five months following Baker's appointment. This was influenced from talks surrounding other proposed technical schools, namely the technology-plus schools proposed by Bob Dunn, which occurred at the same time. Like CTCs, Dunn's technology-plus schools would be inner city specialist schools for technology with independence from their local authorities with some involvement from industry sponsors. Baker and Dunn worked together to develop the CTC policy, with the help of six other main individuals. They were Chris Patten, Cyril Taylor, George Walden, Virginia Bottomley, Alistair Burt and Tony Kerpel, all of whom served as ministers or advisers to Baker and his predecessor at the Department for Education and Science, Keith Joseph.
Implementation
Finally, Baker announced the City Technology Colleges programme at the 1986 Conservative Party Conference, which had a goal of creating a national network of new CTCs that would boost educational diversity and parental choice in the school system, while also improving educational standards in their local areas. As expected, around twenty of these new schools were planned for creation in urban inner cities next to secondary schools already in operation, and all of them would have total independence from their LEA.
The Learning and Skills Act 2000 introduced a similar type of school, the City Academy, later renamed Academy.
Differences from CTCs include halving the financial commitment of the sponsor, and being bound by the Schools Admissions Code.
The Labour government encouraged CTCs to convert into academies.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! School
! Local Authority
!Primary Sponsor
! Opened as a CTC
! Converted to Academy
|-
| ADT College
| Wandsworth
|ADT Limited|| 1992 || 2007
|-
| Bacon's College
| Southwark
|Southwark Diocesan Board of Education,
Philip and Pauline Harris Charitable Trust
| 1991 || 2007
|-
| BRIT School
| Croydon
|British Record Industry Trust|| 1991 || no
|-
| Brooke Weston College || North Northamptonshire
|Hugh de Capell Brooke, Garry Weston|| 1991 || 2008
|-
| Dixons Bradford CTC
| Bradford
|Dixons Group plc|| 1990 || 2005
|-
| Djanogly CTC || Nottingham
|Harry Djanogly|| 1989 || 2003
|-
| Emmanuel CTC
| Gateshead
|Reg Vardy Foundation|| 1990 || no
|-
| Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College
| Lewisham
|The Haberdasher's Company|| 1991 || 2005
|-
| Harris CTC
| Croydon
|Philip and Pauline Harris Charitable Trust|| 1990 || 2008
|-
| John Cabot CTC || South Gloucestershire
|Wolfson Foundation, Cable & Wireless plc|| 1993 || 2007
|-
| The City Technology College, Kingshurst
| Solihull
|Hanson Industries|| 1988 || 2008
|-
| Landau Forte College || Derby
|Landau Foundation, Forte plc|| 1992 || 2006
|-
| Leigh CTC || Kent
|Sir Geoffrey N. Leigh|| 1990 || 2007
|-
| Macmillan CTC
| Middlesbrough
|British American Tobacco|| 1989 || 2006
|-
| Thomas Telford School || Telford and Wrekin
|The Mercers' Company, Tarmac plc|| 1991 || no
|}
Proposed
Although there were only 15 City Technology Colleges by the end of the programme, there were a number of additional proposed CTCs that never opened:
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! School/site awaiting conversion
! Local authority
! Primary sponsor
|-
| Stretford Grammar School
| Manchester
| Biwater
|-
| Thames Wharf
| London Docklands
| Cable & Wireless plc,
London Docklands Development Corporation
|-
| De La Salle College of Higher Education
| Manchester
| Pentland Industries, British Aerospace
|-
| Allan Glen's School, Our Lady and St
Francis' All-girls Secondary School
| Glasgow
| Trusthouse Forte
|-
| None, new school would be built
| Swindon
| W H Smith
|-
| No site decided || Coventry
| Jaguar and Wates
|-
| King Richard School
| Portsmouth
| No sponsor decided
|-
| No site decided
| No area decided
| Paul Hamlyn
|-
| Richard Taunton School
| Southampton
| Beebe Chamber of Commerce
|-
| Merchant Venturers School || Bristol
| Merchant Venturers, Bristol Polytechnic
|-
| No site decided
| Leeds
| Asda, Vickers
|}
See also
- Academy (English school)
- State-funded schools (England)
- University Technical College