At the end of the Victorian age,
further improvements were made to the education system.
Parents were made responsible for the attendance of their children at
school, and through the Education Act
of 1880 school attendance to the age
of ten years old was made compulsory.
As
we can see from the Schools pages in each of the communities on our site,
the schools in Powys had great difficulty in making sure children did
attend school.
Whenever there was a chance of earning extra
income, the poorer families would be tempted to send the children
of to work. In the countryside this meant hay-making and harvest, planting
and digging up potatoes, beating for the pheasant shoots of the rich,
picking and selling whinberries, and a host of other activities.
Attendance Officers were supposed
to visit the homes of children who didn't turn up for school to make sure
that parents sent them. This usually proved ineffective.
In 1891, elementary
education became free of charge,
and by 1899, the school leaving age
had been raised to 12 years old.
For most children in Powys their entire schooling would be in just one
school. This was their local village or elementary school.
In 1902, Local Education Authorities
replaced School Boards.