Plans to establish schools or colleges for technology in major urban areas were first reported in an article from
The Sunday Times in December 1985. There would be between sixteen and twenty of these institutions serving 1000 pupils each. They would charge no fees and would be
publicly funded through an
educational trust, but would select their pupils on a "special" basis. Unlike other state-funded schools at this time, these institutions would not be run by their
local education authority (LEA or simply local authority). 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 ==