Tripartite Schooling, 1944–63

Abstract

‘As a result of the 1944 Education Act the tripartite system of education became established in England and Wales’(Carter, 1966, p. 13). Education was an important component of the postwar welfare state and the settlement, or compromise, between different interest groups in education was a specific instance of the larger, overall settlement which the creation of the welfare state involved. This was a welfare state of the classic type, which has been defined as ‘a society in which government is expected to provide, and does provide, for all its citizens, not only social security but also a range of other services, at a standard well above the barest minimum’ (Lowe, 1993, p. 14). To this implicit social contract between state and citizen was linked the commitment by government, made for the first time in the 1944 White Paper ‘Employment Policy’, ‘as one of their primary aims and responsibilities the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment’. This was the economic bottom line on which the various compromises, or deals, between the different social actors involved was founded.