Search

This study provides a detailed analysis of government policy-making in higher technological education 1944-68; and attempts to explain this in terms of a particular understanding of the policy-making process. The introductory chapter outlines in brief the situation higher technological education was in during World War II, thereby providing the background to subsequent developments. The second chapter looks closely at the period 1945-1950 which has been depicted as one of debate ranging from the Percy Report to that of the National Advisory Council for Education in Industry and Commerce. The third chapter is concerned with the first four years of Conservative Government and its attraction to the idea of establishing a technological institute. Attention in the fourth chapter focuses largely on the technical colleges: the decision to establish 8-10 colleges of Advanced Technology and the National Council for Technological Awards. The recommendations of the Robbins Committee as they affected the development of technological education are outlined in the fifth chapter; and in the sixth, the binary policy and the setting up of the Polytechnics are considered. Two main themes underpin this study; there is the desire to reorganise the system of higher technological education on a more rational basis; and secondly, the need to increase the output of technologists. These themes together with the ways in which dealth with, form the central concern of this study. Throughout this period far-reaching reforms were prompsed, but only incremental changes were made. Often these proposals were formulated in terms of a single, idea solution. However, as this study suggests, no such solution was likely to prove workable given the constraints of the existing system; at best there would be piecemeal, marginal changes. Thus in 1968 the system of higher technical education was not very different from that of 1944: it still remained straddled between the universities and the technical colleges.