Other significant initiatives of the early Pahlavi era were attempts to secularize the educational system by providing funding for state schools to gradually dominate the provision of elementary education at the expense of the traditional religious schools referred to as maktabs. This was achieved by a 1927 decree which provided free education for those unable to afford tuition fees. In the following year, inspired by the French Lycee model, a uniform curriculum was established for high schools, and the Ministry of Education began publishing academic textbooks free of charge for all needy students and at cost for others.