Which conservative politician was responsible for the Education Act?

• A. Neville Chamberlain
• B. R. A. Butler
• C. Winston Churchill
• D. Arthur Greenwood

Answer: (B)

This question tests knowledge of who drove Britain’s major postwar education reform. The Education Act of 1944, often called the Butler Act, was steered through Parliament by Richard Austen Butler, the Conservative who served as Minister of Education in the wartime coalition government. Butler’s aim was to reshape state education, making secondary education free and universal and introducing a tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern, and technical schools. It also established Local Education Authorities to run schools and set up the 11-plus exam to determine the type of secondary school a child would attend, with the goal of broader access to education up to a set age (later raised in later years).

The other figures listed were not the architects of this reform: Chamberlain and Churchill were Prime Ministers at different times, not the Education Minister responsible for this act, and Greenwood was a Labour politician, not the Conservative leader behind this legislation.