Compulsory education is a concept where children are required by the laws of a specific nation-state to receive an
education. It is often closely associated with
public education, that education which a state provides universally to its citizens. In some places
homeschooling may be a legal alternative to attending state provided school. Some children do not have parents and are educated in an
orphanage. An international consensus supporting compulsory education at the
primary level can be argued to be a
human right based on Article 26 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 Talmud (tractate Bava Bathra 21a) praises a sage Joshua ben Gamla with the institution of formal Jewish education in the 1st century AD. Ben Gamla instituted schools in every town and made education compulsory from the age of 6 or 7. Prior to this, parents in Judea taught their children informally[1].
The Aztecs (14-16. centuries AD) had one of the first compulsory educational systems. All male children were required to attend school until the age of 16.[2].
Compulsory education was introduced to Japan during the Meiji period.
