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Prior to 1872 education in Scotland was in the hands of the heritors and kirk session of a parish and the town councils. The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 (35 & 36 Vict., c.62) set up school boards which administered local schools and provided elementary education which was to be compulsory between the ages of 5 and 13. School boards were usually set up for each parish and burgh (royal and parliamentary). The Act also established the Scotch Board of Education as a central government authority. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict., c.50), supplemented by the Education and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict., c.51), established free elementary education. Provision for secondary education was not compulsory but many authorities set up secondary education committees to provide for it. The Education (Scotland) Act 1901 (64 Vict. and 1 Edw. VII, c.9) established mandatory secondary education committees to improve provision and raised the school leaving age to 14.School boards were abolished in 1919 and replaced by education authorities elected on a county basis, although there were separate ones for the burghs of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and (briefly) Leith (Education (Scotland) Act 1918, 8 & 9 Geo. V, c.48). School management committees were to manage individual schools or groups of schools. The functions of the education authority were transferred to county councils and to the four counties of cities (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow) under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 (19 & 20 Geo. V, c.25). School management committees were replaced with education sub-committees or local education sub-committees by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. VI, c.43). The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c.65) transferred the education function to regional and islands councils in 1975.
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