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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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education
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The earliest schools in Britain were the *grammar schools, from which there gradually emerged the *public schools. From the 17C onwards many educational establishments were founded by rival Christian sects, while at a village level simple instruction was on offer in the so-called dame schools, where a local woman taught children for a small fee. In the 19C the state gradually began to accept responsibility for the nation's education. The most important of the early education acts was that of 1870, also called Forster's Act from the MP who introduced it; it set up a network of free secular primary schools alongside the existing sectarian schools, to provide education up to the age of 11. A subsequent act (1880) made attendance compulsory, and another in 1891 established that state schools must be entirely free of even subsidiary charges.
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In modern times the Education Act of 1944 extended the principle of free compulsory schooling to secondary education, raising the school-leaving age to 15; it gave local authorities the obligation to provide secondary modern schools for all who failed to gain admittance to *grammar schools. The school-leaving age was raised to 16 in 1963. Education is now compulsory from 5 to 16 in England, Wales and Scotland, and from 4 to 16 in Northern Ireland.
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