COLLEGES OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES: THREE VIEWS

IT is almost impossible to convey the sense of despair and confusion that spread through the Colleges of Education after Circular 7/73. For a decade there had been constant expansion and pressure from the Department of Education to take more students, from the Universities to raise the academic quality of the courses to make them appropriate for degree awards, and from a profession rightly concerned about professional standards and preparation of students for the classroom. Suddenly in the middle years of the Heath government there was a complete reversal.