Abstract
Education initially attracted as much popular enthusiasm as the NHS and, until the 1970s at least, it was more successful in attracting public finance. Its exceptional degree of political support was demonstrated by the fact that the 1944 Education Bill was the only major piece of reconstruction legislation to be enacted during the war and, in its wake, public opinion was recorded as providing ‘overwhelming support for extra expenditure on education’.1 The war thus reversed, if only temporarily, the widespread popular indifference — and even hostility — to education which had followed the introduction of compulsory schooling in 1880. Because, of full employment, children’s earnings were no longer so vital to family income and consequently many parents were able for the first time to regard education not as a short-term financial loss but as an opportunity for their children to secure a good job and hence long-term financial security.
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Notes and References
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C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Socialism (1956) p. 258; Cmd 9703, Technical Education (1956) p. 4.
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P. H. Gosden, Education in the Second World War (1976) pp. 247, 256. The philosophy underlying the tradition of ‘education for leadership’, and its articulation by Norwood, is best described in G. McCulloch, Philosophers and Kings (Cambridge, 1991).
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C. Knight, The Making of Tory Education Policy in Postwar Britain, 1950–86 (1990) p. 11.
Roy Lowe, Education in the Postwar Years (1988) p. 200. Popular support for the Scottish education system lasted much longer. The succession of critical reports was seen to address essentially English problems,
J. G. Kellas, The Scottish Political System (Cambridge, 1975) pp. 197–8.
P. Gosden, The Education System since 1944 (1983) p. 32.
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© 1999 Rodney Lowe
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Lowe, R. (1999). Education. In: The Welfare State in Britain since 1945. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27012-5_8
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