The Education Act of 1918

### Description

Made school attendance compulsory for all between ages 11 and 17, created resources to regulate home-schooling in the United Kingdom

The **Education Act of 1918** was signed into law by the British Ministry of Magic in the year 1918. The law abolished all school fees for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and created resources within the Ministry to regulate home-taught education.

## History

#### Act of 1892

This act followed the Education Act of 1892, which was responsible for making school attendance compulsory for all young witches and wizards aged eleven to seventeen.

For families that could not afford tuition to a school of magic, they were required by law to teach their children at home. Initially outlined in the 1892 Act, this was not properly regulated until 1918 and the passing of the 1918 Act.

Furthermore, the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, written in 1875, which banned the usage of underage magic outside of school, was causing trouble for home-taught students if they lived in muggle areas: many of them received warning letters and their parents received fines.

Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, many wizarding children worked outside school hours, some even finding work with muggles in places like factories or dustyards. While child labour was also not directly addressed in the previous 1892 Act, many Wizengamot members were concerned at the time that poorer families were straying too far from the Wizarding World, and some preferred that these children be under the Wizarding World's control.

But violations of the 1892 Act for the home-taught children was also a major problem due to the fact that some parents could not afford to give up income earned by their children through jobs they held locally. The 1918 Act hoped to resolve some of these issues.

#### Lead-up to the Decision

Wizengamot Member Bartholomew McKinnon recommended that education be made compulsory in order to stop child labour: Sigmund Moon, and Baldo Shepley, both conservatives, saw the benefit of having the pauper children's movements monitored and their employment being in the hands of the Wizarding World.

#### Act of 1918

The Education Act of 1918 was signed into law under Minister for Magic Archer Evermonde; though he had little part in the passage of the Education Act, Evermonde wholeheartedly supported the education of young witches and wizards so as to not drain Ministry resources while responding to breaches of the Statute of Secrecy.

## Known Contents

The law abolished all school fees for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school to which there had once been a high yearly tuition to attend, and created resources within the Ministry to better regulate home-taught education.

## Backlash

Supposedly, there was some backlash to the law's introduction. Many traditionalist Pure-bloods wanted to keep Hogwarts an exclusive school for only the wealthy and very gifted; others dismissed the Act because they already knew that the cost of supplies and other equipment required to attend were too high for many poorer families to attend.

Members of the Hogwarts Board of Governors strongly opposed the change, until the Ministry was able to negotiate paying a stipend to the school for accepting all pupils.