ABSTRACT
At its simplest, primary education can be regarded as an administrative stage, set up as a result of the 1944 Education Act: The statutory system of public education shall be organized in three progressive stages to be known as primary education, secondary education and further education’ (see pp. 35-6). Even that seemingly straightforward view has its problems forty years on. Should pre-school education be regarded as part of primary education or separate from it? Are middle schools of all types included, or only some variants, or none?
