The Forster Act of 1870.
The Forster Act was created by a British statesman, William Forster, noted for establishing the elements of a primary school system in Great Britain and for his term (1880–82) as chief secretary for Ireland. It required partially state funded board schools to be set up to provide primary (elementary) education in areas where existing provision was inadequate.
Since 1869 Cambridge University founded the first training College for women, which was not officially recognized his leadership. By 1910, there had already been at least a thousand women who studied at Oxford and Cambridge. However they are at this time still needed permission to attend lectures, and protecting academic degrees were not allowed.
In 1870 Foster required the creation of a partially state-funded boarding schools, which would provide primary education in areas where such was not available. Boarding schools (boarding houses) ruled by elected school boards. Such schools remained fee-paying, but poor parents could be exempted.
This law, also known as the "education Act Forster", which operated in England and Wales, contributed to the development of the concept of compulsory education for children under the age of 13. Although initially the law did not require mandatory school attendance, however, this created the prerequisites for the training of children under 10 years of age. In areas where education was a problem, were elected school boards. These boards could create local laws.
Twentieth century.
In April of 1900, the national system of school education appeared higher elementary schools, which provided education for children from 10 to 15 years of age.
The year 1918 saw the introduction of the Education Act 1918, commonly also known as the "Fisher Act" as it was devised by Herbert Fisher. The act enforced compulsory education from 5–14 years, but also included provision for compulsory part-time education for all 14- to 18-year-olds.
A report of 1938 of a committee chaired by Will Spens, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, recommended that entry to schools would be based on intelligence testing. This was followed by the Norwood Report of 1943 which advocated the "tripartite" division of secondary education that was embodied in the 1944 Education Act.
The Education Act of 1944 was an answer to surging social and educational demands created by the war and the widespread demands for social reform. The Education Act 1944, relating to England and Wales, was authored by Conservative Rab Butler and known as "the Butler Act", defined the modern split between primary education and secondary education at age 11, it also established the Tripartite System, consisting of grammar schools, secondary modern schools and secondary technical schools.
After World war II, based on the needs of the growing population, higher education became a priority of internal policy of great Britain. During the second half of the XX century important reforms were carried out: secondary education in public schools became free, and higher education - available to the general population. This applied to ethnic minorities, children from disadvantaged families, and families with low incomes.
In 1957 the first Soviet Sputnik was launched into orbit, it forced the Western countries to once again review the goals and tasks that should be solved by the education system. Six years later, in 1963, in the UK published the report of the Committee on Higher education chaired by Lord Robbins, one of the conclusions which was needed as soon as possible to increase the number of educational institutions, training technical professions and social Sciences.
In the 60-ies – 70-ies a number of universities started its work from scratch. In addition to the scientific and technical professions, they began teaching the courses related to the study of man and society: psychology, sociology, political science, linguistics.
Other important initiatives in the twentieth century include:
- The development of distance learning offered by Open University;
- The emergence of colleges of higher education and professional institutions that can give diplomas of higher education;
- Increase in the number of educational institutions with private financing.
England, Wales and Northern Ireland follow the national curriculum, which was introduced by the British government under the Education Reform Act 1988.