Change in the Education System in England and Wales in the last 70 years (Part 1: 1944 – 1949)

Change in the Education System in England and Wales in the last 70 years (Part 1: 1944 – 1949) examines in detail the development of the national education system and its effects on regional localities from the 1944 Education Act to the present time. The paper’s approach is both through an analysis of processes that have fuelled the changes in that time as well as demonstrating experientially that although the 1944 Education Act was an evolutionary attempt to create a new educational situation in post-war Britain it succeeded as the enabling legislation for the development of the national system of education in England and Wales after the Second World War. Concluding that subsequent developments have been in accord with the Act or have been enabled by the add-on legislation of succeeding governments because the educational themes, which developed later, have their origin in the intentions; the spirit, the mandatory or permissive mix of the 1944 Act; and in reactions to it