Discussion

MR A. J. ABBOTT, Paper 6 Nowadays we are looking far more critically, and quite rightly, at the relevance and significance of secondary education than we have done for many years. The arguments, started in the great educational debate in 1976 have intensified in the last year or so with increasing emphasis being placed on the preparation of young people for the world of work. 'Technical1 and 'vocational' are now the buzz words of secondary education. That the debate now rages so fiercely is a measure of the years of uncritical acceptance of a curriculum which perpetuated the overtly academic expectations of teachers and which denigrated the commercial and industrial components of our culture.