Elementary Education Act 1870 further acts in 1876 ("the Sandon Act", which gave parents a legal obligation to ensure that their children were educated) and 1880 ("the Mundella Act") made attendance compulsory for children until they were 10 years old, with various exemptions. Many factory owners feared the removal of children as a source of cheap labour. However, with the simple mathematics and English they were acquiring, factory owners now had workers who could read and make measurements. Following continued campaigning by the National Education League, following the Elementary Education Act 1880, attendance to age 10 became compulsory everywhere in England and Wales. In
Compulsory education compulsory until age 10 in 1880. The Education Act of 1996 made it an obligation on parents to require children to have a full-time education from age 5 to 16. However, attendance at school itself is not compulsory: Section 7 of the Act allows for home education. France was equally slow to introduce compulsory education, this time due to conflicts between the secular state and the Catholic Church, and as a result between anti-clerical and Catholic political parties. The first set of Jules Ferry Laws, passed in 1881, made primary education free for girls and boys; communes and departments had