ABSTRACT
The Labour government broadly accepted the findings of the Plowden Report, and in 1967, Anthony Crosland announced two main polices, each part of an Education Priority Area programme. Each would be an experimental Education Priority Area and the chosen teams would be tasked with improving educational provision, developing community links and enhancing teaching standards and morale. Tawney claimed, in 1937, that the biggest curse on education was its class-based organisation and that state funded elementary education was effectively a cheap system that crippled the performance of schools, poisoned their "soul" and condemned children to be "smitten by a blight of social inferiority". Essential to achieving this was the Education Priority Area. Resources allocated to the Education Priority Areas (EPAs) remained limited. Undeniably, spending on education had increased from the 1930s through to the mid-1970s. In 1938, it accounted for 3 per cent of gross national product (GNP), while in 1975 it had risen to 7 per cent of GNP.
