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The patchy implementation of the 1944 Education Act because of the poor post-war economy meant that there was a diverse education system divided along lines that corresponded to social class and religion. Nevertheless, the political agenda of the period was one of achieving ‘meritocracy’ (hence the introduction of ‘ability tests’ that would replace parental ability to pay as a criterion of receiving secondary education). The principle of ‘equality of educational opportunity’ was shared by both political parties at the time. The 1945 general education returned the Labour Party to power under the leadership of Clement Atlee. Although not its first taste of government, it was Labour’s first real opportunity to push its social agenda. However, in the immediate post-war context of economic reconstruction, the first social sector priority had to be the creation of the National Health Service. After all, the 1944 Education Act had just been passed and had to be implemented, a process which took the remainder of the 1940s. Tawney’s ideal of the common, non-selective school, which had become known as ‘the comprehensive school’, had to wait for another day. Such a unified secondary school had already had its supporters, and was first introduced in 1953 in Anglesey, North Wales, where the predominantly rural population did not, in its distribution, lend itself to the logistics of the selective system. Local politics was also conducive, as with LEAs still having sufficient power in the 1950s, some Labour authorities in London and other major cities moved to the construction of comprehensive schools, although the fact that some were still single-sex seemed to belie such a title! In most localities, however, the tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern, and technical schools prevailed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, supported by the Conservative government from 1951 to 1964.

On the base of long discussions the authors of this handbook have decided for an extensive concept. It comprises the education systems, in particular the schools, in Europe in a geographical dimension, whose borders essentially coincide with those uniting the member states of the Council of Europe. The education systems described, with their foci on primary and secondary schools, call attention to a concept of Europe, which is extended from the North Cape to Crete and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea. Therefore it is oriented to the notion of ‘elasticity’ whose applicability is, in particular, demonstrated by the inclusion of the Transcaucasian republics as well as of the two ‘bi-continental’ countries: the Russian Federation and Turkey. This ‘elasticity’ (Fernández-Armesto 2002, p. 13) is reflected by the diversity of the individual country studies with regard to the historical emergence and development of ‘national education systems’ in their specific political, legal, socioeconomic and cultural frameworks. As regards their structures, significant differences are, above all, typical of both secondary levels of schooling: at the lower level the preference for integration versus vertical (bi-partite or tri-partite) structuring, at he upper level the specific kind of interrelations between institutions of general (liberal) and vocational education. In this context particular mention should be made of the pre-school level inside or outside the legally established ‘education systems’. Finally, the mainstream of diversity had its significant impacts on curricula and syllabi, time-tables, examination systems and the ways of instruction and education.

Table 1a: Regular age Group in respective school level/type (Prescribed by regulations or majority of children/students of the respective school type and level in this age