Other Colleges for Further Education

Polytechnics: These could be called the "comprehensives of further education", where students can study for diplomas or even degrees, or else just continue their education in the subjects of their choice. The polytechnics offer full-time or part-time courses for students of all ages (usually over 18). There are thirty polytechnics in England and Wales, and fourteen similar colleges in Scotland. They all have the status of universities.

Other kinds of colleges: There are specialist colleges such as the Agricultural Colleges, Colleges of Art and Music, the National Colleges for advanced technical studies for industry. There are also a large number of local colleges of farther education, technical colleges and colleges of commerce, all of which take part-time  as well as full-time students and offer them a very wide choice of subjects.

 

Graduation ceremony at Cambridge The University of East Anglia, one of the most popular new universities

                                                    

Adult education: Courses for adults at these colleges may be vocational (concerning a person's job) or recreational (purely for pleasure). These courses are provided by the local councils, or by a body called the Workers' Educational Association (WEA). Sometimes lecturers from a neighbouring university give a series of lectures.

Courses in pottery (making vases, pots, ornaments), woodwork, car maintenance,  modern languages and cookery, are usually well attended.

Most villages and small towns have clubs and societies of all kinds, and their secretaries invite experts to come and talk to them. Some of these lecturers have a nation-wide reputation.

Altogether, there are several million full-time and part-time students at poly­technics, LEA colleges and evening institutes — their ages ranging between sixteen and eighty!

Part-time education: Every young worker who joins the Blakeney firm spends one day a week — with pay — at a technical college or college of further education. They take courses in their particular skill and work for a diploma.

"You get better work out of an educated worker," Charles says. "Besides, firms which offer further education of this sort attract a better kind of worker. I've got a promising young mechanic studying for an engineering degree at a polytechnic."

There is no law which forces employers to send their young workers to these colleges, but employers have to pay a "Further Education Tax" whether they take advantage of the system or not. Herbert Perkins considers the tax to be unfair.

"What are you grumbling about, Herbert?" said Charles. "If you sent your workers to classes you'd get your money back in the form of a generous training grant. That's the whole idea of the tax. It's meant to encourage old reactionaries like you to be progressive!"

"It's a waste of time and public money," replied Herbert. "If my workers want to better themselves they should go to evening classes in their spare time — as I did."

Text E

The Youth Training Scheme

The majority of young people do not continue their education beyond the age of 16. Most of those who leave school at 16 or 17 cannot find a job either, so about half a million each year join the Youth Training Scheme. The scheme was set up in 1983. The trainees get work experience in local firms as well as training and they also get a small weekly wage. Some trainees find the training and work experience helps them to get a real job at the end but others feel that it is just a way of keeping young people occupied. "It provides cheap labour for industry", the scheme's critics say. "And it reduces the unemployment figures artificially."

 

Text F

The Open University

Britain's Open University or - as it is also called - 'university of the second-chance' started in January 1971. 25,000 spare-time adult students listened to the University's first TV and radio programmes. By July 1976, 50,000 students were following courses.

The Open University (often simply referred to as 'The Open') is a non-residential university providing part-time degree courses, using a combination of television and radio broadcasts, correspondence courses and summer schools, plus a network of viewing and listening centres, where monthly tutorials are held and where students can listen to taped programmes. There are also self-assessment exercises to help students to assess themselves. Students of the Open University can take one or two of its foundation courses

- humanities (literature, history, art and art history, music, philosophy and religion, formal logic);

- understanding society (geography, psychology, economics, sociology, politics),

mathematics ;

- science and technology.

 

Each of the university's foundation courses has a radio and a TV broadcast each week, and there are regular magazines and discussion programmes for students.

The TV and radio lectures comprise only five per cent of the study programme.

The core of the programme are the 36 'course units' which the students receive through the post. Each week's course unit comprises texts which vary from 20 to 60 pages, marked assignments, supplementary booklets and broadcast notes for the 25-minute radio and TV programmes. The average of study needed for a full course is estimated at between 12 and 14 hours per week.

Although the Open University was welcomed by the left, the socially selective character of British education is reflected in the social backgrounds of its students. 36 per cent of the students of the Open University are teachers, about the same proportion are professional workers and a very large number of its students are middle-class housewives.

No formal academic qualifications are required to register for these courses. Nevertheless, many working-class people simply do not have the basic training needed for further study, because they have no school-leaving certificate of any kind.

The standard of degrees is the same as that of other universities. The degrees of the Open University are awarded on a system of credits for each course that has been completed. The university awards the BA degree to students who have gained six credits (or eight for an 'honours' degree), and students can take a maximum of two credit courses a year. People with previous higher education can qualify for credit exemption.

The Open University is financed by fees (£50 a year per student) and a direct grant from the Department of Education and Science. In 1977 it cost from £600 to £1,400 to obtain a degree. The Open University is an important and significant development in education in Britain. It is recognised that some people have made very good use of it.

 

Text G

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