Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to reform the law relating to education in England and Wales. |
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Citation | 7 & 8 Geo. 6. c. 31 |
Introduced by | R. A. Butler (Commons) |
Territorial extent | England and Wales |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 3 August 1944 |
Repealed | 1 November 1996 |
Other legislation | |
Repeals/revokes | |
Amended by | Education Reform Act 1988 |
Repealed by | Education Act 1996 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
Education Act (Northern Ireland) 1947 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to reform the law relating to education in Northern Ireland and for purposes connected with the said matter. |
Citation | 1947 c. 3 (N.I.) |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 27 March 1947 |
Text of the Education Act (Northern Ireland) 1947 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The Education Act 1944 (7 & 8 Geo. 6. c. 31) made major changes in the provision and governance of secondary schools in England and Wales. It is also known as the Butler Act after the President of the Board of Education, R. A. Butler. Historians consider it a "triumph for progressive reform," and it became a core element of the post-war consensus supported by all major parties. [1] The Act was repealed in steps with the last parts repealed in 1996. [2]
The basis of the Education Act 1944 was a memorandum entitled Education After the War (commonly referred to as the "Green Book") which was compiled by Board of Education officials and distributed to selected recipients in June 1941. [3] The President of the Board of Education at that time was Butler's predecessor, Herwald Ramsbotham; Butler succeeded him on 20 July 1941. The Green Book formed the basis of the 1943 White Paper, Educational Reconstruction which was itself used to formulate the 1944 act. [3] The purpose of the act was to address the country's educational needs amid demands for social reform that had been an issue before the Second World War began. The act incorporated proposals developed by leading specialists in the 1920s and 1930s such as R. H. Tawney and William Henry Hadow. [4] The text of the act was drafted by Board of Education officials including Griffiths G. Williams, William Cleary, H. B. Wallis, S. H. Wood, Robert S. Wood, and Maurice Holmes. [5]
There was a desire to keep the churches involved in education but they could not afford to modernise without government help. By negotiation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple (1881-1944), and other religious leaders, a majority of the Anglican church schools became voluntary controlled and were effectively absorbed into the state system in return for funding. The act also encouraged non-sectarian religious teaching in secular schools. A third of the Anglican church schools became voluntary aided which entitled them to enhanced state subsidies whilst retaining autonomy over admissions, curriculum and teacher appointments; Roman Catholic schools also chose this option. [6]
The legislation was enacted in 1944, but its changes were designed to take effect after the war, thus allowing for additional pressure groups to have their influence. [7] [8] Paul Addison argues that in the end, the act was widely praised by Conservatives because it honoured religion and social hierarchy, by Labour because it opened new opportunities for working class children, and by the general public because it ended the fees they had to pay for secondary education. State primary education had been free since the Education Act 1891; even after 1944 certain older grammar schools—the direct grant grammar schools—continued to charge fees but also admitted state pupils on scholarships. [9]
Butler designed the act as an expression of "One Nation Conservatism" in the tradition attributed to Disraeli, which called for paternalism by the upper class towards the working class. [10] Butler later wrote in his 1971 memoirs that the 1944 act, like those of 1870, 1902 and 1918, did not “sweep the board clean” but rather “established a financial framework” within which local authorities could conduct such policies as were appropriate for their region. [11]
The name “elementary school” was abolished as implying that the poorer children who tended to attend such schools would receive an inferior education. [12] The Act ended the traditional all-age (5-14) elementary sector, enforcing the division between primary (5–11 years old) and secondary (11–15 years old) education that many local authorities had already introduced. It abolished fees on parents for state secondary schools. It brought a more equitable funding system to localities and to different school sectors. The act renamed the Board of Education as the Ministry of Education, giving it greater powers and a bigger budget. While defining the school leaving age as 15, it granted the government the power to raise the age to 16 "as soon as the Minister is satisfied that it has become practicable", [13] though the change was not implemented until 1973. It also brought in a new system for setting teacher salaries. [14]
One of the results of the act was to increase the openness of secondary schools to girls and the working class, educating and mobilising them. Another result was that the percentage of children attending higher education tripled from 1% to 3%. [14]
The act provided both for nursery schools and Further Education programmes through community colleges, offering education for both children and adults, a measure that was only followed through by a few LEAs such as the Cambridgeshire Village Colleges, Leicestershire Community Colleges and Coventry, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire community schools. [14]
Anglican schools were continued, but brought under increased state funding and control. Every state-funded school was required to begin the day with a nondenominational religious prayer. [15] This clause was amended by the Education Reform Act 1988, which specified that the act of worship should be of a 'broadly Christian nature' unless such a message was deemed to be inappropriate for a particular school or group of children. The amendment also specified that the act of worship could now take place in classes, rather than the previous system of conducting worship in assemblies. [14]
The act was supported by HORSA (Hutting Operation for the Raising of the School-Leaving Age) a building programme to provide 'hut'-style accommodation to meet the additional educational demand. [16]
The Education Act 1944 made it a duty of local education authorities to provide school meals and milk. The authority could remit the charge for the meal in cases of hardship. [17] The Provision of Free Milk Regulations 1946 (SR&O 1946/1293), made under section 49 of the 1944 act, provided free school milk to all children under 18 in maintained schools from August 1946. [18]
In 1968 Edward Short, the Labour Secretary of State for Education and Science, withdrew free milk from secondary schools for children over eleven. His successor, Conservative Margaret Thatcher withdrew free school milk from children over seven in 1971, earning her the nickname "Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher". [19] [20] [21] In the April 1978 budget, the Labour Government was able to use an EEC subsidy on milk to restore free school milk to children aged between 7 and 11. [22]
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school.
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden,, also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician; he was effectively deputy prime minister to Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, although he only held the official title for a brief period in 1962–63. He was one of his party's leaders in promoting the post-war consensus through which the major parties largely agreed on the main points of domestic policy until the 1970s; it is sometimes known as "Butskellism" from a fusion of his name with that of his Labour counterpart, Hugh Gaitskell.
The Tripartite System was the arrangement of state-funded secondary education between 1945 and the 1970s in England and Wales, and from 1947 to 2009 in Northern Ireland. It was an administrative implementation of the Education Act 1944 and the Education Act 1947.
James Chuter Chuter-Ede, Baron Chuter-Ede,, was a British teacher, trade unionist and Labour Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 32 years, and served as the sole Home Secretary under Prime Minister Clement Attlee from 1945 to 1951, becoming the longest-serving Home Secretary of the 20th century.
Herwald Ramsbotham, 1st Viscount Soulbury was a British Conservative politician. He served as a government minister between 1931 and 1941 and served as Governor-General of Ceylon between the years 1949 and 1954.
The Republic of Austria has a free and public school system, and nine years of education are mandatory. Schools offer a series of vocational-technical and university preparatory tracks involving one to four additional years of education beyond the minimum mandatory level. The legal basis for primary and secondary education in Austria is the School Act of 1962. The Federal Ministry of Education is responsible for funding and supervising primary, secondary, and, since 2000, also tertiary education. Primary and secondary education is administered on the state level by the authorities of the respective states.
The post-war consensus, sometimes called the post-war compromise, was the economic order and social model of which the major political parties in post-war Britain shared a consensus supporting view, from the end of World War II in 1945 to the late-1970s. It ended during the governance of Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher. The consensus tolerated or encouraged nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes, and an extensive welfare state.
Secondary technical schools, referred to colloquially as secondary techs or simply techs, were a type of secondary school in England and Wales that existed in the mid-20th century under the Tripartite System of education. Few were built; their main interest is theoretical.
The Church Educational System (CES) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consists of several institutions that provide religious and secular education for both Latter-day Saint and non–Latter-day Saint elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students and adult learners. Approximately 700,000 individuals were enrolled in CES programs in 143 countries in 2011. CES courses of study are separate and distinct from religious instruction provided through wards. Clark G. Gilbert, a general authority seventy, has been the CES commissioner since August 1, 2021.
The Elementary Education Act 1870, commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It established local education authorities with defined powers, authorized public money to improve existing schools, and tried to frame conditions attached to this aid so as to earn the goodwill of managers. It has long been seen as a milestone in educational development, but recent commentators have stressed that it brought neither free nor compulsory education, and its importance has thus tended to be diminished rather than increased.
The Education Act 1918, often known as the Fisher Act, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was drawn up by H. A. L. Fisher. Herbert Lewis, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, also played a key role in drawing up the Act. The Act applied only to England and Wales; a separate "Education (Scotland) Act 1918" applied for Scotland.
Sir Cyril M. Norwood was an English educationalist who served as Headmaster of Bristol Grammar School and Harrow School, Master of Marlborough College, and President of St John's College, Oxford.
The Education Act 1902, also known as the Balfour Act, was a highly controversial Act of Parliament that set the pattern of elementary education in England and Wales for four decades. It was brought to Parliament by a Conservative government and was supported by the Church of England, opposed by many Nonconformists and the Liberal Party. The Act provided funds for denominational religious instruction in voluntary elementary schools, most of which were owned by the Church of England and the Roman Catholics. It reduced the divide between voluntary schools, which were largely administered by the Church of England, and schools provided and run by elected school boards, and reflected the influence of the Efficiency Movement in Britain. It was extended in 1903 to cover London.
The Beveridge Report, officially entitled Social Insurance and Allied Services, is a government report, published in November 1942, influential in the founding of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It was drafted by the Liberal economist William Beveridge – with research and publicity by his wife, mathematician Janet Philip – who proposed widespread reforms to the system of social welfare to address what he identified as "five giants on the road of reconstruction": "Want… Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness". Published in the midst of World War II, the report promised rewards for everyone's sacrifices. Overwhelmingly popular with the public, it formed the basis for the post-war reforms known as the welfare state, which include the expansion of National Insurance and the creation of the National Health Service.
The history of education in England is documented from Saxon settlement of England, and the setting up of the first cathedral schools in 597 and 604.
A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted fees, some paid by a Local Education Authority and some by the pupils' parents or guardians. On average, the schools received just over half of their income from the state.
Sir Frederick Clarke was an English educationist who was Director of the Institute of Education in the University of London between 1936 and 1945.
Elementary schools were the first schools in England and Wales intended to give a basic education to the children of working class families. At the start of the 19th century, the only schooling available to these young people was run by private concerns or by charities, and was often of a very poor standard. In the first decades of that century, a network of elementary schools was established by societies backed by the Christian churches. In an effort to expand this "voluntary" system, the government made grants available to these societies, initially for new school buildings but later towards their running costs. It became apparent that although this system worked reasonably well in rural communities, it was far less successful in the rapidly expanding industrial cities, and that Britain was falling behind the rest of the developed world. In 1870, an act of parliament established elected school boards throughout England and Wales, which were empowered to create secular "board schools" funded by local taxation where there was no provision by the church societies. Further legislation made school attendance compulsory, and eventually free of charge. The problem of how the education of older pupils should be managed was solved by abolishing school boards in 1902 and passing responsibility to local councils. Elementary schools were eventually replaced in 1944 by the system of primary and secondary education.
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden,, generally known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a British Conservative Party politician.
Section 4 of the Education Act 1944 set-up two Central Advisory Councils for Education, one for England and one for Wales and Monmouthshire. The purpose of the councils was to advise the Minister of Education upon matters connected with educational theory and practice, the advices were used to refine educational policy and develop educational institutes. Starting with a terms of reference, the councils would carryout an enquiry and produce a report which would be submitted to the Minister of Education who could choose to publish the report.
She was a fall guy for the Treasury's expenditure cuts, for it was Anthony Barber, not Margaret Thatcher, who abolished free milk for school children; yet it was Margaret Thatcher who took the blame for it and was nicknamed Thatcher the Milk-Snatcher.
We have also decided to take advantage of the Common Market subsidy for school milk by enabling local education authorities to provide free milk for 7-to-11-year-olds.
This "Further reading" section may need cleanup.(August 2022) |