The next 2 years for this government and what it should do in education

It is an occupational risk of any minister of education that he harbours ambitions of bequeathing his surname to posterity, by fathering a new Education Act. This is normally a temptation to be resisted. Up till now, the 1944 Act has stood the test of time quite well, and there has been little agreement as to what amendments should be put in the place of those parts of it which are not working very well. It contains priceless compromises between Church and State such as no other Western country has yet achieved, compromises themselves only possible because the Act went through Parliament during the war. They were achieved at a cost of granting to the churches a scale of state aid and support far more generous than they received in any other country, and by and large it has probably been worth it. Some of its provisions have been very slow in working out (we are only just now eliminating the last few all‐age schools and making the secondary education for all, which it heralded, a reality); others, like County Colleges, have never and probably now will never take shape. There are so many arguments for not bringing in a new Act now — ‘no money’ ‘leave well alone’ ‘the '44 Act isn't yet implemented’ ‘reform local government first and education will naturally follow’ — that one has to look rather deeper for the reasons behind the recent DES announcement that a new Act is in active preparation.