What is the importance of the Central Department of Education, USA ?

The Federal Government was keen for the execution of its plans for educational organisation since the middle of the nineteenth century. It established the Central Department of Education in 1867.

This Department of Education was named as Education Office in 1930. Henry Bernard was appointed as its first Education Commissioner.

In the beginning the Education Office was meant to conduct the educational programmes of the Federal Government but during the Second World War, it was attached to the Federal Security Agency.

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The President appoints the Chief of the Education Office, “known as Education Commissioner. The Education Commissioner is appointed for an indefinite period. The following were the functions of the Education Office in the beginning:—

(a) Functions pertaining to plans for educational reforms.

(b) Provision for the education of Negroes and Non- European communities.

(c) Provision of Education in Columbia city, Hawaii Island, Alaska and other such places.

(d) Efforts for seeking inter-state co-operation and co­operation of the various departments of the Federal Government for providing educational facilities in different states.

Later on with the vocational and industrial progress, the Education Office also began to undertake vocational and industrial development programmes.

Besides, its efforts for education development at the inter-state level, collection of the statistics of the educational progress in the states, its publication and propagation, necessary reforms in the educational system, additional training subjects, proper school organisation and the control of the Federal Government on them became the additional functions of the Education Office.

During the Second World War the Education Office had been attached to the Federal Security Agency. Consequently, it was assigned the task of Federal-Security education. The Education Office did a pioneer and praise-worthy work in that direction.

Thus the office increased its importance in the War­time security efforts. The Federal Security education included the direction and control of all types of educational plans related to war, development and progress of industrial education, organisation of civil security force, conducting of National Youth Administration and provision of work for the unemployed and their vocational training.

However, in spite of its sincerity of purpose, the Education Office could not achieve complete success in its efforts, because of the apathy and distrust of the State Governments.

The State Governments were suspicious and afraid lest the Federal Government should gain complete control over them and thus they lose their independence.

It was because of this suspicion that the Constitution of America and the various Amendments of the Constitution did not make any specific mention of the educational responsibilities.

The public feeling that the Constitution has neither delegated educational powers to the Federal Government, nor with-held them from the State Governments led the public to think that those powers had been reserved for the State Governments and the public.

As a result the State Governments began to establish direct contact with the various departments of the Federal Government without any information to the Federal Government. Thus the importance of the Education Office was minimised. Today the functions of the Education Office are very limited.

The Education Commissioner supervises his office, prepares reports on the basis of statistics collected from the schools of different States and gives it wide publicity.