From Training Colleges to Colleges of Education: the change in the position of women on their academic staffs

Does it always happen that men take over the senior positions when institutions become co‐educational and large? A study of the academic staffing during the transition of the colleges for the training of teachers, which were small, mainly single‐sex institutions, to the colleges of education which were larger, co‐educational establishments seems to illustrate one occasion when this occured. These changes in the colleges took place between the late 1950s and early 1970s, during a time of constant crisis in teacher supply and while the schools worked to accomodate the large number of children from the post‐1945 increase in the birth rate. Many of the changes in teacher training, including the introduction of the B.Ed. degree, were advocated in the recommendations of the Committee on Higher Education, chaired by Lord Robbins and are discussed later.