Education in Scotland in the twentieth century includes all forms of organised education in Scotland, such as elementary, secondary and higher education. The centre of the education system became more focused on Scotland throughout the century, with the Scottish Education Department partly moving north from 1918 and new departments created by the Scottish Executive after devolution.
The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 and the abolition of school fees in 1890 meant there was a state-funded, national system of compulsory free basic education with common examinations. The Education (Scotland) Act 1918 introduced the principle of universal free secondary education, brought the Roman Catholic schools into the state system, and replaced the School Boards with 38 specialist local education authorities. These would be subsumed into local government in 1929. Unlike the Education Act 1944 in England and Wales, the Education (Scotland) Act 1945 (8 & 9 Geo. 6. c. 37) was a consolidation measure. Secondary education was the major area of growth, particularly for girls. Selection was ended by the Labour government in 1965. New qualifications were developed to cope with changing aspirations and economics, with the Leaving Certificate being replaced by the Scottish Certificate of Education Ordinary Grade ('O-Grade') and Higher Grade ('Higher'). In the 1980s these were replaced by the Standard Grade qualifications and the curriculum was reformed to take account of the whole range of abilities.
In the first half of the twentieth century Scottish universities fell behind those in England and Europe in terms of participation and investment. After the Robbins Report of 1963 there was a rapid expansion in higher education in Scotland. By the end of the decade the number of Scottish Universities had doubled. New universities included the University of Dundee, Strathclyde, Heriot-Watt, Stirling. From the 1970s the government preferred to expand higher education in the non-university sector and by the late 1980s roughly half of students in higher education were in colleges. Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, the distinction between universities and colleges was removed, creating new universities at Abertay, Glasgow Caledonian, Napier, Paisley and Robert Gordon.