Online exhibition by High Life Highland's Highland Archive Service illuminates how The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 transformed teaching for young people and still has repercussions today
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A new online exhibition by the Highland Archive Service will mark the 150th anniversary of an act of parliament that transformed the lives of Scottish children.
The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 was to revolutionise learning north of the border by making education compulsory for youngsters aged five to 13 years old.
As such, few single pieces of legislation have had such a profound impact on the lives of our young people.
High Life Highland’s archive service has created 150 Years of Learning: New Online Exhibition from Highland Archive Service which is now available here.
Following on from the 1870 Education Act in England and Wales, the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 made provision for a Board of Education for Scotland and also led to the establishment of local school boards across the country.
The training of teachers went into overdrive to meet the new requirements, with hundreds of new school buildings erected across the country.
Thousands of admission registers and school logbooks were generated as record-keeping was standardised.
The online exhibition sheds light on how the act came about, why it was needed, what it meant for our young people and what the records it generated can tell us about teachers, subjects, holidays, discipline and other matters.
It enables those interested in finding out more to delve into the Highland Archive Service collections to learn about the benefits the Education (Scotland) Act brought, the problems it created and the legacy that remains relevant today.
The original material used to create the exhibition was sourced from the four High Life Highland archive centres in Inverness, Wick, Fort William and Portree.
