The "Cockerton Judgment" of 1901 had caused a crisis by undermining the lawfulness of "higher grade schools" for children over the age of twelve. A temporary fix allowed the schools to operate one more year. A second issue involved the 14,000 church schools, called "voluntary schools", run chiefly by the Church of England and including some Roman Catholic schools. They were poorly funded and did not receive a share of local taxes, but they educated a third of school children.
Under the 1902 Act the existing overlapping jurisdictions, with 2,568 school boards set up by the Elementary Education Act 1870, as well as all existing School Attendance Committees, were abolished. Their duties were handed over to county councils or county borough councils, as local education authorities (LEAs). The 328 LEAs fixed local tax rates. The LEAs could establish new secondary and technical schools as well as developing the existing system of elementary schools. These LEAs were in charge of paying schoolteachers, ensuring they were properly qualified, and providing necessary books and equipment. They paid the teachers in the church schools, with the churches providing and maintaining the school buildings and providing the religious instruction.
Under the Education Act 1902 (Balfour Act) changes to conditions attached to government grants encouraged the expansion of technical education. Local Education Authorities (LEAs) took over most of the evening continuation schools. After 1926 they became known as evening institutes.
The merging of evening continuation and evening technical school provision after 1902 resulted in LEAs and other managing bodies providing:
- part-time day and evening courses, including day continuation classes
- courses at works schools and elsewhere in a variety of vocational, domestic, art and general subjects
Tutorial classes developed as part of a movement to expand facilities for adult education, fusing the interests of the Workers’ Educational Association and the University of Oxford. The classes were recognised by the Board of Education in Regulations of 1908/1909 and grant-aided.
Opposition to the Act came especially from Methodists, Baptists and other Nonconformists outraged at support for Anglican and Catholic schools, and angry at losing their powerful role on elected school boards. Historian Standish Meacham explores their position:
Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906, a noncontroversial welfare law .
the act put an end to the broad-based expansion of secondary education that had originated in the so-called higher grade schools established by progressive, popularly elected local boards. Instead, secondary education was [to be] administered by county council committees and occurred in specifically designated "secondary" schools, admission to which was strictly controlled so as to exclude all but a very few working-class children. This important issue [was] a matter of major concern to working-class reformers anxious to provide a democratic "highway" rather than an exclusionary "ladder" to secondary education.The Liberal Party led the opposition and made it a major issue especially in the election of 1906; the Labour Movement was mostly opposed.
The Act was a short-term political disaster for the Conservatives, who lost massively at the 1906 general election. However, G. R. Searle has argued that it was long-term success. It standardized and upgraded the educational systems of England and Wales and led to a rapid growth of secondary schools, with over 1,000 opening by 1914, including 349 for girls only. The Church schools had financing from local ratepayers and had to meet uniform standards. Eventually, in the Butler Act of 1944, the Anglican schools were brought largely under the control of Local Education Authorities.
