ABSTRACT
In many ways the 1944 Education Act was for the Party the consummation of a generation's work and ambition. In 1945 the Party again came to office. The prospects for radical change in education were propitious for two reasons. The speakers in favour of the amendment made clear the Party's objection to the pamphlet, but at the same time revealed a degree of confusion in their own minds. It was clear from this point on that the official Ministerial policy of tripartitism was to be rejected by the Party. The Party's adoption of this principle on the one hand meant that it did not really accept, as its policy after 1922 had presupposed, that parity of conditions for a variety of different secondary schools would guarantee parity of social status for them and their pupils, and it wanted to avoid any of these problems of disparity of esteem.
