Guidance has been published by OFFA to help School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITTs) providers submit their access agreements.
SCITTs will need to have access agreements approved by the Director of Fair Access if they:
- Provide postgraduate Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) courses (including PGCE) and;
- Receive funding directly from the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), or the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and;
- Wish to charge tuition fees for home/European Union (EU) trainees on these courses above the standard level in, or after, 2006-07.
Director of Fair Access, Sir Martin Harris said:
“Fair access to higher education is about ensuring equality of opportunity for all those that have potential to benefit from it, irrespective of their background, schooling or income. This is an important issue for all institutions, regardless of their size, or where they lie in the sector.
“Our initial efforts have been on supporting Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Further Education Colleges (FECs). However, now that the dust is settling, we are able to look more closely at other areas of the sector.
“SCITTs play an important role in providing initial teacher training, but they are not in the same position as universities and colleges in their capacity to deal with our requirements having neither the resources of larger institutions, nor access to the same statistical information. Therefore this bespoke guidance is based on our earlier guidance for HEIs and FECs, but takes into account SCITTs’ special circumstances. It has been produced in consultation with the National Association of School Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT).”
Access agreements can be submitted at any time up until 3 January 2006. Decisions will be issued no later than 28 February 2006. In exceptional cases submissions will be considered after 3 January 2006 (for agreements for 2006-07).
Notes
‘Producing Access Agreements: OFFA guidance to School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITTs) providers‘ (OFFA 2005/02) provides guidance to institutions wishing to produce an access agreement.