Beyond the classroom

The outline of a new structure for post school education is now about complete. Assuming that the report of the Russell committee proves acceptable to the government, and there seems no reason in view of the extreme modesty of its proposals why it should not, the Conservative blueprint for the next ten years is fairly clear. Saving an act of God or other intervention, we are to have a steady expansion of places in higher education, a contraction of teacher training places, a new qualification for the sixth form leaver who, for some reason not yet made clear, might not want to go all out for a degree, and a doubling in the numbers of students in adult education. Except for changes in the function of some of the colleges of education, the basic structure is to remain the same. Radical change there is none, nor any real recognition that there may be social changes already at work which could make nonsense of the whole edifice of higher, further and adult education as we know it.