Beacon Status was a progressive educational initiative that the United Kingdom implemented based on the idea that organizational learning could be advanced through a competitive process of identifying successful organizations and recruiting them to disseminate their good practices. The beacon status initiative was launched by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in partnership with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in 1998 and ran through to August 2005 for primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. Beacon Status was for providers funded by the Learning and Skills Council, which are mainly Further Education colleges. The Learning and Skills Improvement Service was still awarding Beacon Status in 2011.