The tripartite system is not mentioned in either Act, this model was a consensus of both major political parties based on the 1938 Spens Report.
The system's merits and demerits, in particular the need and selection for grammar schools, were contentious issues at the time and remain so.
[3] Similar conclusions were drawn in a number of other countries, including France, Italy, Germany and Sweden, all of which operated a state-run system of selective schools.
The 1926 Hadow Report had recommended that the education system be formally split into separate stages at the age of eleven or twelve.
The basic assumption of the Tripartite system was that all students, regardless of background, should be entitled to an education appropriate to their needs and abilities.
Each was designed with a specific purpose in mind, aiming to impart a range of skills appropriate to the needs and future careers of their pupils.
The Butler Act had been written by a Conservative, and had received the full backing of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The logistical difficulties of building enough secondary schools for the entire country delayed the introduction of tripartite education.
have argued that tripartite education was the Conservative answer to the attractions of the Welfare state, replacing collective benefits with individual opportunities.
This was partly the result of a historical neglect of education in the north of England, which the tripartite system did much to correct.
"General reasoning" questions could be about classical composers, or the functions performed by domestic servants – subjects which children from working class backgrounds would be less able to answer.
Grammar school students would take General Certificate of Education (GCE) O-levels, while children at secondary moderns initially took no examinations at all.
Secondary moderns did over time develop O-level courses for bright students, but in 1963 only 41,056 pupils sat them, roughly one in ten.
Although the Butler Act offered further education for all, including students from secondary moderns, only children who went to grammar schools had a realistic chance of getting into university.
A mock-historical account of British education viewed from the year 2033, it satirised the beliefs of those who supported the Tripartite System.
In July 1958 the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell formally abandoned the Tripartite system, calling for "grammar-school education for all".
Anglesey, London, Coventry, the West Riding and Leicestershire had all abolished the Tripartite System in the 50s and early 60s, for a variety of reasons.
Paradoxically, at the same time as Labour was attacking the Tripartite System for its inequalities, some in the middle class were increasingly upset at the social mobility it fostered.
The Tripartite System fell victim to its own elitism, as the traditional supporters of the grammar schools began to worry about their own children's educational future.
He was an adamant critic of the tripartite system, and once remarked, "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every last fucking grammar school in England.
It was portrayed foremost as an effort to raise standards in secondary moderns, and Prime Minister Harold Wilson had promised that grammar schools would only be closed "over my dead body".
Comprehensivisation was accused of using schools "directly as tools to achieve social and political objectives", rather than for the education of pupils.
More grammar schools were closed under Margaret Thatcher than any other Education Secretary, but this was by now a local process, which was allowed to continue to avoid controversy.
The 1976 Education Act forbade selection of pupils by ability, officially ending the Tripartite System.
However, now that comprehensive equality had been instituted, a large number of parents were willing to pay to extricate their children from it[citation needed].
Margaret Thatcher's government allowed selection once again in 1979, and it has been used increasingly by individual schools eager to choose those they perceive to be the best pupils.
Original proposals for switching to the Comprehensive system were put forward in 1971, but the suspension of devolution meant that they were never acted upon.
When devolution was suspended in 2002, the Northern Ireland Office decided to continue the policy, although the phase-out date of the eleven plus was put back from 2004 to 2008.
The Burns Report itself called the 11-plus system socially divisive and argued that it placed unreasonable pressures on teachers.
The number gaining five GCSEs at grades A-C, the standard measure of a good education, is ten percentage points higher.