Education Act 1997

43 Provision of careers education in schools

(1) All registered pupils at a school to which this section applies must be provided, during the relevant phase of their education, with a programme of careers education.

(2) This section applies to—

(a) county and voluntary schools;

(b) grant-maintained schools;

(c) maintained or grant-maintained special schools (other than those established in hospitals);

(d) city technology colleges and city colleges for the technology of the arts; and

(e) pupil referral units.

(3) It is the duty of each of the following to secure that subsection (1) is complied with, namely—

(a) in the case of a school falling within subsection (2)(a) to (c), the governing body of the school and its head teacher,

(b) in the case of a school falling within subsection (2)(d), the proprietors of the school and its head teacher, and

(c) in the case of a pupil referral unit, the local education authority maintaining the unit and the teacher in charge of it.

(4) Each of sections 496 and 497 of the [1996 c. 56.] Education Act 1996 (default powers of Secretary of State) shall, in relation to the duty imposed by subsection (3) above, have effect as if any reference to a body to which that section applies included a reference to the proprietors of a school falling within subsection (2)(d) above.

(5) For the purposes of this section the relevant phase of a pupil’s education is the period—

(a) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in his class attain the age of 14; and

(b) ending with the expiry of the school year in which the majority of pupils in his class attain the age of 16.

(6) In this section—

• “career” includes the undertaking of any training, employment or occupation or any course of education;

• “careers education” means education designed to prepare persons for taking decisions about their careers and to help them implement such decisions;

• “class”, in relation to a particular pupil, means—

  (a)

  the teaching group in which he is regularly taught, or

  (b)

  if he is taught in different groups for different subjects, such one of those groups as is designated by the head teacher of the school or, in the case of a pupil at a pupil referral unit, by the teacher in charge of the unit.