Education act scene I

Little that is desirable in the way of educational reform is in need of legislation, to judge from the mass of evidence submitted so far to the Secretary of State. However, a case can be made out for considerable changes in the control of education vis‐a‐vis the local authorities and the central government, from which might stem many of the reforms sought by the interested parties. Also, since the passing of the 1944 Act, the cost of education and the numbers involved in it have both increased dramatically across all sectors. It is now a very big business indeed, costing over £2000 million to run through the cumbersome machinery of local authority control.