Compulsory education

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Compulsory education is education which children are required by law to receive and governments to provide. Homeschooling is typically an alternative to going to government-accredited schools.

Compulsory education at the primary level was affirmed as a human right in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Many of the world's countries now have compulsory education through at least the primary stage, often extending to the secondary education.

The Aztec are thought to have had the first compulsory educational system. All male children were required to attend school until the age of 16. ^[1] However, such mandates were little known in Western modernity until in 1616 an act in Scottish Privy council commanded every parish to establish a school "where convenient means may be had", and when the Parliament of Scotland ratified this in 1633 it introduced a tax on local "heritors" (landowners) to provide the necessary endowment. ^[2]

In 1774 mandatory schooling was introduced in Austria ^{[citation needed]} from which it gradually spread to other countries in the 19th century. It reached the American state of Massachusetts in 1852 ^{[citation needed]}, and quickly spread to other US states thereafter.

1 Extent
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[edit] Extent

In Canada, compulsory education is set for ages 6 to 16. In Finland, it starts at the age of 7 (+/- 1 negotiable), and ends after graduation from comprehensive school at the age of 16, or at last after ten school years. In the United States, compulsory education is set for ages 5 to 15. ^[3]