Education Act 1944

The Education Act 1944, known as the Butler Act after its sponsor R. A. Butler, then President of the Board of Education, received royal assent on 3 August 1944 and abolished fees for state secondary schools in England and Wales, enforcing a divide between primary education (ages five to eleven) and secondary education (ages eleven to fifteen). It set the school leaving age at fifteen, with power for the Minister to raise it to sixteen once practicable, which happened in 1973, and the share of children going on to higher education tripled from one percent to three percent in the years after. Described at the time as a triumph for progressive reform, it became a pillar of the post-war political consensus on education across major parties.