The colonial authorities felt that education needed a more formal basis, to be under closer scrutiny and to provide greater openings for the more apt pupils. "The government introduced a proclamation which demanded the registration of schools [and]… empowered magistrates and Native Commissioners to inspect schools." By 1922 the General Missionary Conference passed a resolution calling for the "establishment of one or more government colleges or institutions to provide instruction in agriculture, forestry, pedagogy and the duties of chiefs." Further to this the "institution [was] to be under the management of a joint council of the nominees or the Administration and representatives of the missions", setting the precedent for partnership between the state and church in education. From the 1920s onwards there was to be a gradual erosion of the church's primacy in education in Zambia. Understanding the need for increased professionalism among its staff the Anglican Church "closed all its schools for 18 months between 1918 and 1920 and brought all their teachers to Msoro for retraining." The Advisory Board devised the Native School Code by 1927 establishing the state as the arbiter of educational standards in Zambia. The state now had the power to deregister schools that did not operate for the prescribed number of days in a year or did not cover adequately the curriculum developed by the Board. The number of registered mission schools declined significantly during this period. "Of the 547 schools run by the White Fathers only 17 qualified as schools under the new conditions." Part of the reason that the Copperbelt Schools were inter-denominational was the pressure from the Board not to allow contending schools to open up in the towns and repeat the rivalry that was prevalent elsewhere leading to small villages with two schools run by competing missions. Following the Second World War the government opened its own schools in some provinces. This event was to draw the Christian denominations and indigenous authorities together in a consensus on education in an attempt to reinforce their positions. Some Churches saw the government policy as an attempt to secularise education and resisted the move openly. In 1951 Local Education Authorities (LEA) were established to take control of government schools and were also authorised to take control of any mission schools that the indigenous authorities, mission societies or any other voluntary organisation no longer wanted to administer. Many of the Protestant missions handed their