Reform attempts that had already begun with the beginning of the century continued during the inter-war period with bills from the minister of Education, Konstantinos Gontikas, in 1929 and Georgios Papandreou from 1930 onwards. At the heart of these two legislative regulations were the functionalism of education and the adjustment of schools to the needs of economic development. Various similar schools were unified and general education was divided into two equal cycles: six years of primary school and six years of secondary school. The bills provided for the establishment of lower vocational schools, evening primary schools and upper schools for girls, while mixed primary schools were instituted to tackle amongst other things the high rate of illiteracy among women. Study at higher educational institutions was made available at Academies of Education for teaching staff to improve their skills. Within the framework of Georgios Papandreou's legislative measures, the ministry of Education proceeded to establish the Supreme Education Council and took over the administration of education. The school curriculum, however, did not change substantially and the teaching of classical Greek kept its prominent place in the curriculum. But there was no follow-up to the important reforms achieved in terms of textbooks, timetables and school buildings (the school building programme), while further reforms were prevented by delays and objections. The dictatorial Regime of the Fourth of August brought back the four-year primary school and applied further reforms to secondary education, annulling previous modifications. It proceeded to make radical changes in the syllabus and textbooks and formed the Committee that undertook the compilation of the Grammar of the Demotic (virtually the work of Manolis Triantafyllidis).