James (1972)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The third cycle
Chapter 3 The second cycle
Chapter 4 The first cycle
Chapter 5 Organisation and development of the system
Chapter 6 Summary of the report
A note of extension

Appendix 1 ATOs and other bodies supplying reports
Appendix 2 Sources of written evidence
Appendix 3 Sources of oral evidence
Appendix 4 Visits made by members of the Committee
Appendix 5 Training institutions and the teaching force 1962-70
Appendix 6 Examples of course structure for the DipHE
Appendix 7 A possible distribution of Regional Councils
Appendix 8 Training institutions: size and status
Appendix 9 List of recommendations

Index

Report by a Committee of Inquiry appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, under the Chairmanship of Lord James of Rusholme

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1972
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

A note of extension
[pages 78 - 79]

1. We are signatories of the report which therefore represents common ground between us and all of our colleagues. Our purpose m writing this note of extension is to indicate five respects in which we would wish to go beyond this common ground.

2. First, on the validation of academic awards, we hope that from the outset the Regional Councils would facilitate consultation between all the interested parties, with a view to committing the whole of the academic awarding functions to constituent universities or to the CNAA, thus ensuring the integration of the colleges of education fully into the existing higher education system. We hope that many universities, whether or not the base of present ATOs, would wish to form an association for this purpose with a college or group of colleges in their area. We are more sanguine than our colleagues that a number of universities, given adequate financial support, will wish to undertake the new tasks described here. Universities have shown their concern for teacher education both by their response to the McNair Report in the 1940s and to the Robbins Report in the 1960s. We cannot believe that, at a time when all institutions of higher education are becoming increasingly sensitive to social needs, they would wish to reverse this history. This is not to suggest that the colleges could not flourish if they were to offer awards under the auspices of the Council for National Academic Awards. We have been impressed, as our colleagues have been, by the liberal attitude of the CNAA towards the award of degrees. We think it necessary, however, to emphasise the very real institutional and educational advantages that could result from an association between the universities and the colleges, an association perhaps ranging from the validation of the DipHE for some colleges to full amalgamation with others. The colleges of education are certainly in no doubt of the value of their connection with universities. We have also formed the view that this association is most likely to meet the wishes of the majority of the teaching profession.

3. Secondly, we wish to emphasise the implications of the proposal contained in the report that some colleges of education should develop both general and honours degree courses, built on the unit structure of the DipHE. Such courses, although not necessarily aimed at producing teachers, would be more appropriate to the profession than many of the highly specialised degree courses at present available. The college of education system should be fully involved in the expansion of higher education and enabled to admit not only DipHE students, intending teachers and others, but also undergraduates reading for first degrees of many kinds.

4. Thirdly, we would think it important that within this range of new-style degree courses in the colleges there should be courses leading to honours degrees which included the study of education. It should be possible for the colleges to create a four-year honours course which incorporated the first year of teacher training either as the first year of the second cycle in the normal way or in some form of sandwich course of the type developed in polytechnics. The present system in the colleges allows some students to take a four-year degree course in education: last year over 9 per cent of entrants to the colleges successfully completed BEd courses and this percentage has been growing annually. It is right that the new system should offer similar opportunities, in the form of degree courses which included the study of education and were well suited to the needs of intending teachers.

5. Fourthly, although we endorse the report's proposals for ending the divisiveness of teacher training, we are disturbed that divisiveness will persist in that area where it causes most concern: differences in the length of initial higher education received by teachers of different kinds which are in turn reflected in differences of salary and career expectations. During the next few years of expansion in higher education, possibly accompanied by some contraction in the demand for teachers, it is both inevitable and desirable that the profession should recruit an increasing proportion of teachers who have received three years' higher education before their professional training. Indeed, there is some danger that it might recruit more holders of specialised degrees than were needed, in preference to teachers whose higher education was better suited to the work they were going to do. Our suggestions in paragraphs 3 and 4 of this note would avoid this danger. We think it entirely feasible that within a decade all intending teachers should have the opportunity to pursue higher education courses of the same length, sufficient to attain that breadth of knowledge, creative skill and awareness which is needed for the teaching of children at all stages. We go beyond our colleagues in stressing the likelihood and desirability of such a development.

6. Fifthly, as indicated in a footnote in Chapter 3, we consider that the involvement of the professional institution or centre in the second year of the second cycle should be made more precise by requiring it actually to assign each licensed teacher to a tutor to carry forward the work of the first year and thus ensure greater continuity between the two years of the cycle. The assigned tutor would be expected to give close personal as well as professional support to the licensed teacher.

7. The system described in this report would be flexible enough to allow for a diversity of possible developments. Individual judgements of how the system could and should evolve may legitimately differ, but there is no doubt in our minds that the system would be capable of accommodating changes of the kind proposed in this note. It is a development along these lines that we would wish to see.

JF Porter
JR Webster