BRITISH LIBRARY 
OF POLITICAL AND 
ECONOMIC SCIENCE 



LONDON SCHOOL OF 
ECONOMICS AND 
POLITICAL SCIENCE 



fabian tract 364 
educating for uncertainty 
contents 1 the need for further education 
2 where Crowther went wrong 
3 the case for rapid change 
4 the need for an experiment 
1C(r) 
f 1-"J /61SII 
this pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Societ) 
represents not the collective view of the Society but only th 
view of the individuals who prepared it. The responsibility c 
the Society is limited to approving the publications which 
issues as worthy of consideration within the Labour move 
ment. Fabian Society, 11 Dartmouth Street, London SW1 
October 1965 
fabian tract 364 
educating for uncertainty 
contents 1 the need for further education 
2 where Crowther went wrong 
3 the case for rapid change 
4 the need for an experiment 
1C(r) 
f 1-"J /61SII 
this pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Societ) 
represents not the collective view of the Society but only th 
view of the individuals who prepared it. The responsibility c 
the Society is limited to approving the publications which 
issues as worthy of consideration within the Labour move 
ment. Fabian Society, 11 Dartmouth Street, London SW1 
October 1965 

1. the need for further 
education 


Since the turn of the century numerous 
schemes have heen proposed, both byindividual educationalists and government 
commissions, for the extension of 
part time education to all young workers 
in the period of two or three years alter 
they have left fuil time education. That 
these schemes have uniformly been 
abandoned is principally due to the 
superior claims on scarce resources of 
primary and secondary education. Social 
scientists, themselves in scarce supply, 
have similarly concentrated on the fuli 
time educational structure, at primary,
secondary and university level. 

There is every reason to think that this 
period of neglect is coming to an end. J 
Firstly, the primacy of part time education 
for the manual worker is becomingestablished de facto by the rapidity of 
technological change. Secondly, theJ 
struggle to establish the comprehensive 
principle has been won intellectually, if 
not administratively, in secondary education: 
the next stage must be its extension 
to the further education system.
Thirdly, the inter.dependence of the vari-.j 
ous sub-systems of education is much 
more clearly recognised than before, so 
that changes in one sub-system are now 
expected to affect the total structure. 
The danger is that resources are not' 
made available to meet the needs that 
result from change, even though its 
effects are anticipated in theory. This 
danger is particularly clear in the likely 
impact of the Newsom Report on the 
field of further education. 

two assumptions 

This pamphlet stems from two assumptions: 
the first is that the Newsom Committee 
were correct in stating that "when 
the school leaving age is raised to 16 for 
all, there will be a fundamental change 
in the whole educational situation, and 
the schools must be equipped, staffed 
and reorientated in their working to meet 
it. If they do their job well, the colleges 
of further education will have to meet 
rapidly increasing demands for courses 
by older school leavers" (Half Our 
Future, p8, para 23, HMSO 1963). The 

second assumption is that the Crowther 
Committee were correct in recommending 
that the introduction of county colleges, 
or compulsory part time education 
for all until the age of 18, should be 
planned in three stages. But Crowther 
then went on to say that "the first stage, 
which would take place while the Ministry 
and the local education authorities 
were heavily engaged with preparations 
for raising the school •leaving age, would 
be concerned with the development of 
t!'l,e voluntary system (of further education), 
with the assistance of strong encouragement 
from the Government " The 
second stage would be the introduction 
of compulsion in a few carefullly selected 
areas. This should fo!Iow hard on the 
raising of the school ·leaving age. "This 
experimental stage would feasibly take 
about five years . . . The third stage in 
the in~roduction of further education for 
all would be the progressive extension of 
compulsion to the whole country . . ." 
in a "phased programme spreading in 
successive years from region to region"
for which "three or four years might be 
needed" (15-18, vol 1, pp188-189, paras 
242-294, HMSO 1959). On the basis of 
Crowther, therefore, we cannot expect a 
compulsory, part time, paid system of 
further education for aH until the 1980s, 
while the needs of Newsom demand that 
it should arrive by the mid-1970s. 

The Newsom assumption means that 
further education is integral, not merelyincidental, to the chances of Newsom's 
proposals succeeding. But the Newsom 
Committee were prevented, by their 
terms of reference, from making proposals 
for the further education system 
as radical as those made by their Reportfor the secondary modern system. Hence, 
the Crowther proposals for further education 
assume tremendous significance,
all the more so because, while Crowther 
was right in his "three stages" proposal, 
he was· wrong, from the Newsom point 
of view, in his timing. Insofar as the 
Newsom proposals work, boys and girls 
in secondary modern and comprehensiveschools who have previously been either 
apathetic towards or hostile to the idea 
of school, are going to be stimulated and 
interested by a different kind of educa



tion which relates much more closely to 
their work, and to their personal and 
social deve~opment, than the present,
narrowly "subject tied" approach. The 
extra year is the basis for this re-orientation. 


Yet, if this education stops at 16, it is 
probable that more harm wiH be done 
than if the system remains as it is. False 
hopes will have been generated, only for 
the quick return of cynicism on entry to 
the labour market, if educational links 
are not maintained. Unfortunately, this 
is essentially what Crowther's timing will 
involve for the first and most crucial 
decade of the Newsom re-organisation. 
On the basis of Crowther's timing, the 
regiona.J experimental stage would begin 
with the exit from the schools of the 
first age group to leave at 16, in 1971. 
Lasting five years or so, this stage would 
take us to 1976, when phased extensions 
of further education by compulsionspread regionally to cover the whole 
country, this stage i'asting three or four 
years at least, and taking us to 198C. 
Allowing for the usual time lags, we 
cannot, on the basis of Crowther, expect 
a national part time further educational 
system for all up to 18 until w.ell into 
the 1980s. 

This does not simply mean that we are 
abandoning virtually half a generation to 
the present inadequacies of the postsecondary 
modern school system: it 
means the strong probability that the 
"head of steam" generated by Newsom 
wilf fizzle out, since the demand for further 
education which it stimulates will 
not be met. 

underlying assumptions 

By "Newsom chi·ld" we mean the "Jones'' 
and the "Robinsons", the two middle and 
the lower quarters of the secondarymodern age group as assessed by readingability, and not the "Browns", the top 
quarter in ability as assessed by reading 
tests, who are really grammar school 
boys manques, who go on much more 
frequently than the rest to white collar 
and ski.Jied manua-l jobs, day release and 

apprenticeships, and who are more likely 
to be middle dass in origin. 

The theoretical essence of the Newsom 
Report is to be found in the work of one 
of its witnesses, Basil Bernstein, of the 
Institute of Education. Bernstein's work 
("Socia-l Class and Linguistic Development: 
A Theory of Social Learning" (ed. 
FJroud, Halsey and Anderson), Education, 
Economy and Society, 1961), centres, in 
brief, on the "linguistic deprivation" of 
the lower working class child of average 
or below average ability, whose parents 
typically have had no education themselves 
beyond the o.Jd elementary stage 
and neither of whom IS of middle class 
origin. 

Bernstein contends that this sort of child 
i~ socialised into communicating solely 
by "restricted" language, the vivid and 
direct, but limited, language of everydayworking class speech. The middle class 
child, by contrast, is taught to respoqd 
not only to this "restricted" language, but 
is also social'ised into the use of "elaborated" 
language, the vehicle used for 
concept formation. We are not concerned 
here with accent, pronunciation, or with 
class linked quirks of address ; but 
simply with the extent to which the two 
codes "carry" differing potential for 
the elaboration of the child's .linguisticand intellectual apparatus in the future. 
"Social class factors have been shown to 
affect not only the J,evel of educational 
attainment, but also the very structure 
of ability itself," according to Basil Bernstein 
("Research for the 'Sixties", Twentieth 
Century, Autumn 1963, p92). 

The logic of this approach of Bernstein's 
is that the middle class child is extended 
linguistically far more than the working 
class child, in range, diversification and 
complexity of symbols and thought. This 
lays the essential groundwork for the 
smooth entry of the middle class child 
to the school, and the more tentative and 
less sure footed entry of his working class 
counterpart. Subcultural differences are 
progressively widened by differential 
parenta·l encouragement, streaming, availability 
of books, and so on, so that bythe age of seven or eight it is axiomatic 


that each middte class chitd will be performing 
academically better than anyworking class child of equivalent ability 
at entry. (see J. W. B. Douglas, The 
Home and the School, 1964, and H. Jackson, 
Streaming : An Education System in 
Miniature, 1964.) While the weightings 
to be adduced to each of these variables 
are not yet agreed upon, their operation 
works cumulatively in the same direction 
and towards the ~ame product : the 
severity of the handicaps under which 
the working class child competes with his 
middle ol'ass counterpa,rt for restricted 
educational opportunities. 

There is an obvious danger that Beenstein's 
work, unlike that of Douglas, 
Jackson, Houd, Halsey and others, will 
be misunderstood as locating the source 
of educational "failure" purely in 
"faulty" or "inadequate" socialisation, 
rather thaJ!l in conditions stemming from 
far less subtle social and economic in equalities. 


Access to an code

"el~orated" onlyframes the conditions under which conceptual 
thinking becomes possible. Possession 
of an "elaborated" code does not 
guarantee higher intelligent or creative 
thinking: thought is not indenticai with 
language, and from the quicker retort of 
lower working class boys to physical 
aggression might be inferred the frustration 
of thinking imprisoned within a restrictive 
code. There is no necessary eorelation 
between speed or depth of insight 
and sense or fluency of expression : 
and too often in education inability to 
think is inferred from a failure to communicate. 
An "elaborated" code in language 
cannot prevent the stereotypy and 
rigidity of thought deployed at the typical 
Tory Women's Conference. Nor 
should concern about "linguistic deprivation" 
deflect attention from the brute 
economic inequalities and differences in 
parental privilege, attitude and ambition 
referred to above. 

By the age of 11 , the typical " Newsom 
child" is formed , not only in his vocabulary 
and linguistic ability, but in his dissociation 
from academic education. It is 
at this point that he is "selected" tor the 

secondary modern or the diluted comprehensive 
school. 

extending awareness 

The appointment of the Newsom Committee 
in itself indicated recognition of 
the secondary modern system's failure 
to undo the damage inflicted on the 
"Newsom child" by throwing him into 
an educational structure based on 
criteria he was ill prepared to meet. Their 
job was to propose the appropriate education 
to enable these children to overcome 
the cultural "gulf" which increased 
with age between them and the system 
of formal education. 

Briefly they proposed a set of ideas 
basically designed to extend the Newsom 
child's awa,reness of choice, and by implication 
to extend his range of choices 
both educationally and occupationally. 
Their chief notion was that the content 
of the traditional disciplines should be 
re-examined and taught through and in 
terms of the culture with which the working 
class child has most direct and intense 
experience, and that this content 
should be expanded to cover issues and 
themes relevant to the child's own personal 
and social development. This is not 
to say that the worbng class child is 
to be hardened in his own culture : 
simply that it must be the basis for engaging 
his energies and attention in the 
first place. Nor is it to say that the working 
class child is to be "bourgeoisified'' 
and taught to share middl'e olass values 
and attitudes : simply that the school 
should aim at imparting the middle class 
child's linguistic and intel'lectual rangeand awareness. New thinking on the 
teaching of English and Social Studies 
combined is abundantly provided. Typical 
of the new approach are R eflections, 
a textbook for teaching English to 14 to 
18 year olds, by Simon Clernents, John 
Dixon and Leslie Stratton, and the ideas 
contained in The Popular Arts by Stuart 
Hall and Paddy Whannel. In the 
field of political and "constitutional" history, 
Philip Abrams has recently attacked 
the smug circularity and arid parochialism 
of the major text-books in use at all 


4 

levels. Sterility in this field is particularly 
disturbing, and underlies the ease 
with which even the best intentioned 
"liberal studies" course degenerates into 
mere "civics" (P. Abrams, "Notes on the 
Uses of Ignorance", Twentieth Century, 
Autumn, 1963, pp66-77).Not surprisingly, 
the young voter typically inclines to political 
quietism (P. Abrams and A. N. 
Little, "The Young Voter in British Politics", 
British Journal of Sociology, 
June, 1965). A new awareness can 
only be achieved via a re-organisation 
of the syllabus which makes for 
flexibility and sensitivity to local as well 
as naJtional concerns, and which is possible 
only on the ·basis of compulsory full 
time education for aH to 16. The csE 
examination, which started this year,
could-if imaginatively used-be the 
vehicle by which the Newsom proposalsbegin to work. 

other attempts 

The task of the Newsom Committee was 
essentially to solve a theoretical problem, 
the culJtural gulf between the school and 
the chiLd of average llJild below average 
ability, and an organisation problem,
how to build this "solution" into the curriculum 
within restricted terms of reference. 


The task of the Crowther committee, on 
the other hand, was to set the terms of 
reference for the English educational 
system for the next two decades, by exhaustive 
research and the sifting of 
priorities at the 15-18 otage. As the first 
major enquiry into the education system 
since the 1944 Education Act, the main 
impact of the Crowther Report's findingsfocussed on how effectively the reconstituted 
system was working. Here the Report 
was general1ly, if guardedly, optimistic 
: it concentrated on assessing the 
under use of the potential of the status 
quo, rather than on critici~ing its basic 
structure. But inevitably the Report was 
also charged with deciding how best the 
unimplemented sections of the 1944 Act 
could be put into operation. The 1944 
Act, and the debates which surrounded 
it, called for the raising of the leaving 

age to 16, and the introduction of parttime compulsory further education for 
all, as soon as possible after the raisingof the leaving age to 15 in 1945. In 
1945 it was assumed that these sections 
would be operative by the early 1950s. 

The idea of releasing young people in 
industry for one day per week to attend 
techni'cal college classes dates from long 
befor~ the 1944 Education Act. The 
Fisher Education Act of 1918 required 

. authorities to establish "continuation 
schools" for young people between the 
schoof leaving age of 14 and the age of 
16, and enforce their attendance for 320 
hours per aJnnum. P. I. Kitchen in From 
Learning to Earning, describes the disappointing 
story of the failure of these 
schools. Rugby has been the only authority 
to carry out, continuously since 1919, 
the intention of this Act. Similarly the . 
1944 Education Act made provision for 
continued education in "county coHeges" 
on a part time or fuH time basis, to the 
age of 17 and, subsequently 18 : again,
this section of the Act remained unimplemented. 
Very few county colleges, as 
such, have been established, and nowhere, 
save Rugby, is release compulsory. 


The onus on the Crowther committee 
was to analyse the reasons for this stagnation, 
and press for politica.Jly and financial1y 
acceptable ways of introducingthis long neglected reform. However, despite 
Crowther's support for the implementation 
of the ideal as soon after the 
raising of the school leaving age to 16 
as possible, and despite the Report'scriticisms of the system which, 40 years 
after the Fisher Act, still left 70 per cent 
of young male employees without anyfurther education after leaving school, 
the prospect of any legislation in the 
foreseeable future to enforce these recommendations 
is strikingly absent from 
the political scene. 



2. where Crowther went 
wrong 


To some extent, the seeds of this abandonment 
were present in the Crowther 
line of argument. Firstly, Crowther's 
timing of the introduction of compulsoryfurther education was illogical. Secondly, 
it gave the county coHege concept a "liberal 
studies" non-vocational gloss which 
was at odds both with the intention of 
the 1944 Act and with the subsequentNewsom proposals. If the term "liberal 
studies" is used here pejoratively, this is 
not to denigrate the field, whose prorriise 
we are in essence recommending, but to 
reflect the emptiness with which the term 
is currently used and associated. What 
minor experiments currently exist for 
further education with semi-skilled and 
unskilled young workers are termed 
"non-vocational day release", a conceptquite contradictory to the intention of 
Newsom, but inherent in the separate development 
of technical further .education 
in the 1950s, welcomed by Crowther. 
This suggests a watered down academic 
education for those who need it least, 
and have rejected it since the age of five. 

Crowther's timing was the real basis for 
the neglect now threatening his recommendation 
for further education. He 
gave four main reasons for making experiments 
with compulsory further education 
follow, rather than precede, the 
raising of the school leaving age. 

As 15 year olds woul"d soon be staying 
on full time, Crowvher thought ·that to provide 
for them temporarily in part time 
further education would be "wasteful". 
This point has aLready been partly undermined 
by the implementation of another 
Crowther recommendation, the abolition 
of the Christmas leaving date. This 
means that, in effect, most leave at 15t: 
the "gap" between leaving and part time 
further education is therefore reduced to 
a matter of a few months for most, and 
cannot be described as harmful. In other 
words, if compulsory part time further 
education was brought in for 16-18 year 
olds before the raising of the leaving age, 
it would not necessari1y have to provide 
for 15 year olds. 

Secondly, Crowther hoped that raising 
the leaving age to 16 would automatic


ally mean just as many staying on to 
17-18 as had previously stayed on to 16. 
Therefore, further education would only 
have to cater for 1 t , as distinct from 
2t, age groups. Apart from the fact that 
this assumption seems over optimistic, 
since staying on tendencies cannot be 
extrapolated so readily from one age 
group to the next, the idea of restrictingfurther education to 1 t age groups runs 
counter to the intention of the county 
college ideal. 

Thirdly, Crowther thought that staff engaged 
to deal with 15 year okls might 
have difficulty switching to 17 year olds 
when the leaving age is raised. This 
assumption is very dubious ; teachers are 
not that inflexible, and 15 year olds will 
have to be catered for anyway if New-
som's proposals for spells in further education 
during the fifth year at school, are 
widely implemented. 

Last, it was thought that fuH time education 
for the 16th year was infinitelypreferable to part time education for that 
year. This assumption is valid, but should 
not be used as an argument against the 
need to experiment regionally with compulsory 
further education before the raising 
of the school leaving age. At least 
three of the arguments used by Crowther 
for postponing even a regional experiment 
with compulsory further education 
for all until after raising of the leaving 
age are Vll!lue judgments loosely based on 
the magical qualities of a fifth year unrelated 
to a re-organised further education 
system. Yet, Crowther goes to greatpains to stress that both are needed, and 
Newsom makes it adamantly certain that 
further education for aU must rapidlyfollowing raising the leaving age to 16. 

county colleges 

Apart from the negative implications of 
the Crowther case for postponing the 
introduction of further education for all, 
the report further weakened that case byaccepting the tripartism of secondary 
education at further education level. This 
represented a retreat to th~~a of essentia1ly 
non-vocational further education 


for those outside the technical college, a 
notion contrary to the intentions of the 
framers of the 1944 Act. The Reportdefined the county college as: "a term 
sometimes used to cover any institution 
which might be attended by young people 
receiving part time compulsory education, 
and sometimes to refer only to an 
institution designed to provide for those 
whose education at this stage will not be 
mainly vocational. Except where otherwise 
stated, we use the term in the more 
restricted sense" (p507). Crowther points 
out the "confusion in usage about the 
term county college. There is no doubt 
that the Act of 1944 provides for attendance 
at county colleges by all who are 
not receiving full time education. . . . 
There might thus be a widely different 
curriculum for apprentices and for routine 
process workers, though both would 
be attending county co[i!eges. In much 
common speech, however, the term 
"county college" has been used as if it 
excluded most of what now goes on in 
technical coNeges, that is, as if it applied 
only to institutions designed to cater fo:the 
great number of young workers who 
neither need, nor could benefit from, a 
strictly technical education. . .· . In what 
follows, the term ... is to be understood 
in this more restricted sense" 
(15-18, pp163-4, para 251). 

The imptication of this crucial passageis quite simply that Crowther endorsed 
and accepted the tripartite system at the 
15-18 stage. By doing so, and by scaling 
down the "county college" concept to 
essentially non-vocational, if occasionally 
"practical", education. Crowther effectively 
placed the issue' of further education 
for all at the 'bottom of the heap of 
educational priorities. The build up of 
technical colleges throughout the 1950s, 
the White Paper on "technical education" 
in 1956, which set out a five year 
plan of development for technical education, 
and pressed home the need for 
coHeges of advanced technology first recommended 
by the 1945 Pcrcy Report, 
had both legitimised and institutionalised 
the trend for technical education. 
as well as "academic" education, to be 
separated from the rest. (See M. Argles. 

South Kensington to Robbins: An Ac


count of English Scientific and Technical 
Education since 1851, pp104-108, Long-
mans, 1964). 

Crowther failed to swim against the tide, 
and even strengthened it by insisting that 
the county college ideal, which the report 
had shredded of any real relevance, 
""as viable only in spanking new buildings 
with teachers cahled "tut-ors". Words 
like "leadership" and "pastoral care·· 
were invoked to convey the relationship 
desired between teacher and pupil. Nor 
could the linking of the county college 
concept with the Duke of Edinburgh'saward scheme and the Youth Service 
have been conducive to confidence in the 
idea of further education for all by hardheaded 
employers who had to foot partof the bill (15-18, paras 298-301). The 
concept was now linked in social thinking 
with the wooi'liest kind of "liberal 
studies" education. Not surprisingly, it 
has proved infinitely shelvable. 

recent developments 

DeveJiopments since the Orowther Reportstrengthen the view that there is verylittle prospect of any, radical improvement 
in the voluntary further education 
system in the foreseeable future. What 
has happened since Crowther is thCllt education 
is becoming more stratified, not 
less, and these trends show up exceptionally 
clearly irn the further education field. 
We are moving towards a meritocratic 
system catering for four broad, but 
clearly distinct strata, with tremendous 
inequality in the investment of resources 
at each level. 

At the top we have the expanded elite, 
catered for by the Robbins Report, and 
in turn meant to cater for our needs for 
administrClltors and technologists. The 
next stratum is the apprenticeship layer, 
at present covering the bulk of skilled 
workers, and now extended upwards to 
take in technician grades. These two 
strata practically accommodate all boys 
of middle-class origin and above, if we 
include black coated workers with apprentices. 
The third layer is largely prospective, 
designed to make up for the 


inadequate numbers in the second layer 
and overlapping considerably with it. The 
third layer takes in those skilled workers 
and top level semi-ski-Lled who are not 
accommodated by the creaking apprenticeship 
system, and who are to be catered 
for by the Industrial Training Act 
1964 and the Henniker-Heaton Reportproposals for doubling numbers in day 
release over the next five years. This 
layer has yet to emerge, but will do so 
in response to our need fm more skilled 
labour. The fourth layer constituting over V 
40 per cent of the 15-17 age group, is 
simply the rest, perhaps a third of whom 
will, in a decade, constitute an unemployable 
rump, unless rapid and radical 
changes are made to their prospects and 
education at both secondary and further 
levels. 

the Industrial Training Act 

The danger is not only that we treat this / 
fourt~ayer as expendable from the fur-· 
ther e ucation and training point of 

view, but also that we imagine that the 
.provision for the second and third layers 
is adequate. The deficiencies of our apprenticeship 
system are indicated below, 
but they set the tone for the whole further 
education system. It was in response 
to these deficiencies, which underlay our 
chronic shortage of skilled manpower, 
and helped to perpetuate under employment, 
demarcation and restrictive practices 
in industry, that the Industrial 
Training Act and the Henniker-Heaton 
Committee were conceived. But the Industrial 
Training Act is aimed at the 

limited training and re-training ~nds de-(9

manded by the current estimate· that by~~? 

1970, 1t million less unskilled, and 1t 
million more skilled workers will be 
needed; even if successful beyond current 
expectations, the Act will only give a narrow practical education for a 
limited number of skills; and the Henniker-
Heaton Report simply recommended 
an increase in numbers to be 
granted day release which was inevitable 
anyway. 

It is clear from the publication of the 
Levy and Grant proposals of the first 

Industrial Training Boards, 1965166, that 
the worst fears of some educationalists 
about industrial training will not be realised. 
Further education ~>eems to be a 
definite requirement in all schemes of 
training on which grant is to be paid. 
But it is also quite clear that industrial 
training is not, nor can it be, any substitute 
for compulsory day release or its 
equivalent for all young people not in 
full time education between 15 and 18, 
as envisaged by the 1944 Act. 

The further education to be included in 
industrial training schemes will take the 
form of packaged courses, a~! with a 
strongly vocational flavour, even in those 
areas of work where there can be little 
purely vocational skill to be acquired.
Again, while some benefit may come immediately, 
or fairly soon. to the 
"brighter" Newsom children, the middle 
and lower ·ranges, the Jones and Robin-
sons of the report, may not be affected 
by operative training programmes for a 
long time to come. ~hey will be the last 
in the queue, though eventually they may 
be covered. The very fact that their needs 
are primarily educational in the broadest 
sense, that is, they need to be stimulated 
into further intellectual growth, means 
that a scheme of education organised byindustries is singularly inappropriate.
Young workers at this level have far 
more in common, culturally and in their 
social needs, than they have with others 
in the same industry ; and an attempt to 
produce an educational scheme based on 
the needs of their industry may in fact 
reinforce the very lack of flexibilitywhich it is one of the aims of industrial 
training to overcome. 

The more formal the education and 
training these students receive, the more 
it seems associated with what they did 
at school, the less there is of personal 
choice and the meeting of personal needs 
and preferences, the greater the tendencyfor these students to drop out of education 
and training altogether. These are 
points which may not always be apparent 
to the outside observer, particularly one 
who is concerned with the problems of 
industry, productivity and manpower.
Industrial training may therefore be 


either a step towards a genuine expansion 
of further education and of educational 
opportunity for Newsom children out at 
work; it may equally well become an 
obstacle to the development of the kind 
of education they so desperately need. 
It is for this reason that, however successful 
the Industrial Training Act may 
prove in practice, it is really necessary 
to have an alternative scheme in actual 
existence to demonstrate the difference 
between the complete response of the 
1944 conception and the partial response 
of the Industrial Training Act to the 
needs of the young people themselves. 

The need for more skiJ,led manpower has 
been used as a pretext to bypass Crow-
thee and Newsom. In effect, we have now 
legislated in the compulsory fifth year for 
those who would not have stayed on 
voluntarily, only to leave the situation 
after that fifth year completely unchanged 
for the same population. The 
further education recommendations of 
Crowther have been shelved, if not deliberately 
abandoned, and without them 
the promise of the Newsom proposals is 
seriously threatened. 


3. the case for rapid change 
The principal inadequacy of the present 
system of voluntary further education, 
whereby those whose employers do not 
encourage them to take advantage of dayrelease faciLities are dependent uponevening only education, is that far too 
few of the population "at risk" benefit 
from it. This applies particularly to 
"Newsom children"-by our definition. 
An unpublished study carried out in 1964 
by Peter Willmott in Bethnal Green gives 
a representative picture. Of 148 boysaged 15-20, who had been to secondarymodems, including a few who had been 
to comprehensives, 55 per cent had had 
no education since leaving school at 15. 
26 per cent had experienced or were undergoing 
some form of day release, and 
an additional 19 per cent some form of 
evening only education. The Henniker-
Heaton Report (Day Release, appx A, 
table 1(a), p36, HMSO 1964) on day release 
similarly showed that 28 per cent 
of boys aged 15-17, and not in full time 
education, were granted day release. 
Even these rationa'i figures aJre, misleading, 
for they take no account of courses 
discontinued, failure rates and non-attendance. 
The wastage in evening only 
education is especially severe, amounting 
to almost 50 per cent by the end of a 
course (15-18, p168, para 258). Obviously 
these figures show that the present system 
is coming nowhere near voluntary 
implementation of the section of the 1944 
Education Act which cahls for part time 
educati'On for all till the age of 18. Yet 
the merits of expanding the voluntary 
system are constantly invoked as an alternative 
to a framework of compulsion . 

lack of provision 

The system iseven unsati_sf__a_c..,..to_r_y---..fo-r-that 
minority who achieve day release. The 
bulk of the students work pa.rt time for 
the qualifications of GCE, the National 
Certificates (ONC and HNC) and City and 
Guilds. The National Certificates are 
gradually outstripping the rest as the system 
gears itse!,f to catering increasingly 
for the "abler" students, since the 
"Higher National" is virtual.ly synonymous 
with professional status for engineers, 
who form the majority of entrants. 

The failure rates in both ONC and HNC 
examinations are notoriously high : about 
12-13 per cent of those embarking on 
ONC finally achieve HNC standard four or 
five years ltater (depending on whether 
they were exempt from the first stage of 
ONC by virtue of possessing enough GCE 
"0" levels) (Ethel Vena'bles, "The Reserve 
of Ability in Part Time Technical 
College Courses," Universities Quarterly, 
vol 17, pp60-75). The failure rate for ONC 
alone is 75 per cent, though this is reduced 
to about 55 per cent if those failing 
at the initial stage are excluded. 

Figures of this magnitude indicate wastage 
of both ability and resources on an 
immense scale. This wastage wiU grow 
as the system becomes increasinglygeared to strictly vocational competence 
and the criteria appropriate to profes~
ionaJ status. In 1960-61 , of about 86,000 
part time day students on ONC courses in 
England and Wales, roughly 75 per cent 
were in electrical and mechanical engineering, 
while the obvious goal was associate 
membership of the Institution of 
Mechanical Engineers (AMIMechE). 

It is doubtful, however, that this is either 
the best way to pursue the professionalisation 
of engineering, for which the 
"sandwich" course and a Dip. Tech. is 
more apprpriate, or the best use of existing 
resources in further education, which 
should be evenly aimed at catering for 
students of an levels of ability and aspiration. 
As it is, those who have most need 
of the part time route are "selected out" 
as rigorously as they were from the full 
time route. 

The present system of further education 
is neither intended for, nor used by, the 
"Newsom chi·ld". He is left to fend for 
himself in the l·abour market and, in the 
largely responsibil'ity free period between 
leaving school and marriage, he invariably 
relishes his "freedom" from 
"school·" and any adequate system of 
vocational guidance. However, earlier 
marriage and its inroads on means and 
mobi-lity, brings boys in "dead-end" jobsface to face with the finality of their 
educational shortcomings at an increasingly 
early age. 



As Alan Little and John Westergaardhave pointed out ("The Trend of Class 
Differentials in Educational Opportunityin England and Wales,'' British Journal 
of Sociology, vol 15, pp301-316), the 
1944 Education Act has made for increased 
opportunities for social mobility, 
but only through education: "career 
mobility", or mobility via routes other 
than the school system, have contracted 
proportionately. 

Those who do not make it at school do 
not make it at all : mobility, the opportunity 
to aJttain even skilled manual 
status, is a process which is increasinglypeculiar to the adolescent and pre-adolescent 
stages of the life cycle. Since the 
war, boys in "dead end" jobs at least had 
the capacity of temporary high wages and 
an abundance of opportunities within the 
same stratum, throughout the life cycle ; 
but even this certitude will likely disappear 
by the rnid-1970s, with a shrinkingopportunity structure at the "bottom of 
the heap" and the closure of access to 
upward mobility for those without qualifications 
or the intellectual and practical 
means of acquiring new skiNs. Once in 
the labour market, the only potential 
avenue to skilled employment for the 
majority of "Newsom children" would be 
a vastly expanded system of part time 
further education. 

no short term 
economic incentives 

The case for compulsion as the necessary 
framework for an adequate system 
of further education ·remains the lack of 
any clear cut, short term economic in· 
centive for e~·tr employers to allow, 4r 
young, non-s lied workers to demand, 
part time fu her education on a voluntary 
basi-s. The case for compulsion in 
further education is essentially that for 
compulsion up to age 16 in full-time 
education. Moreover, the two stages are 
interdependent: the one cannot succeed 
without the other. 

The real trouble, however, is that the 
present ystem relies not so much upon 
the employer's consent to young workers 
participating in further education : it de


pends upon his active encouragement of 
them to pursue it. This is not only a 
wrong headed assumption <to make about 
the majority of employers: it is a wrong 
headed role to impose upon them in the 
first place. Only employers with jointconsultation agreements to keep, or with 
the need to maximise technical ability of 
a fairly high order, wiLl take advantage 
of day release facilities. 

day release 
and the small firm 

At present, small and medium sized firms 
are the most inefficient in their training 
and granting of day release. Hence the 
provision in the Industrial Training Act 
for a levy to be imposed on firms evading 
their training obligations: the large 
firms resent the disproportionate burden 
they carry in training skil.Jed manpower, 
and the "poaching" of that manpoweronce the costs have been met. The focus 
here is strictly on vocational skills rather 
than all round further education. Even 
so, a recent study in Leicester (E. T. Keil, 

D. S. Riddell andi C. B. Tipton, "The 
Entry of School Leavers into Employment,'' 
British Journal of Industrial R elations, 
vol 1, pp408-411) found that 70 
per cent of young male entrants to industry 
took their first jobs in firms of less 
than 250 employees. By contrast, only 45 
per cent of the total male labour force 
is employed by firms of this size. In 
other words, the firms that give the worst 
training, even within narrowly defined 
limits, attract a disproportionate supply 
of young entrants. 
It is not only that the smaller and middle 
sized firms attract a disproportionatenumber of young male entrants to industry, 
whether they are apprenticed or not, 
and that they have far less access than 
those entering large firms, of 1,000 persons 
or more, to both adequate in-training 
and day release as a result : it is also 
that the smaller the firm, the greater the 
likelihood of "drop out" for even that 
minority who do attend college (C. L. 
Ashton, "Enrolment and Examination 
Success of Day Release Students by Size 
of Firm", British Journal of Industrial 
relations, vol 3, pp90-94). If these firms 


give the most inefficient training in a 
strictly technical sense, their record in 
meeting requirements for a voluntary 
system of "liberalised" further education 
would be even worse. 

This situation is not unique to Leicester. 
A recent study in Willesden, London, 
(Joan Maizels, "The Entry of School 
Leavers into Employment", British Journal 
of Industrial Relations, vol 3, pp 7789) 
showed that 62 per cent of boys' first 
placements were in firms of less than 
100 employees, as against 54 per cent in 
Leicester. In WiJ,Jesden, only 25 per cent 
of aH males aged 15 and over are employed 
in firms of this size, comparedwith 54 per cent of al'l boys under age18, and 74 per cent of secondary modern 
boys in their first placements. Even where 
the boys g-ained apprenticeships, it appeared 
from an analysis of placementsby the local Youth Employment Bureau 
that one in three secondary modern appentices 
were placed with firms of ten 
persons or less, while Iess than one fifth 
of apprentices from selective schools, 
grammar and technical, were placed with 
firms of less than 100 persons, and over 
one half of the latter were placed with 
firms of 1,000 or more -persons. "Presumably 
this asymmetry reflects the discrim


\. ination of the larger firm in favour orf 
applicants for apprenticeships who have 
secured some "0" level passes in GEe. 

This implies, because of difficulties associated 
with training facilities in the small 
firm, that boys who have a:lready obtained 
selective education, are more l'ikely 
to receive favourable training opportunities, 
including that of day release, which 
the large firm can usually provide" (p83). 
It also impl!ies that, although many of 
the vast majority of secondary modern 
boys who enter industry via the smalLer 
firm eventually move to the large firm , 
thus "leaving their former jobs to the 
fresh genera:tion of school leavers" (p86), 
they do so in general only after they 
have outgrown the age at which the 
training opportunities of the large firm 
would have been available to them. 

Nationally, as looally, the short term 
economic incentives to press for further 

education for all are lacking. The picture 
IS one ·of stretched labour resources particularly 
of skilled manpower. Hen~e the 
"hoarding" or skilled labour, and the 
enactment of the Industrial Training Act. 
This is the current picture: but it has 
been projected to 1973 at least by the 
first report of the manpower research 
unit of the Ministry of Labour (The Pattern 
of the Future", HMSO, 1964). With 
the fall in numbers of new entr·ants to 
industry due with the "valley" in the 
size of adolescent age groups in the late 
1960s, and with the raising of the school 
leaving age in 1971, the unit states that 
"up to 1973, the likely picture is . . . 
one of stretched manpower resources" 
(p35). They envisage the employment of 
an additional one mi.Hion married women 
by 1973, although this is partly a response 
to the expected drop, of half a million, 
in the numbers of single, widowed and 
divorced women available by 1973. 

manpower utilisation 

Jn short, full employment and scarcity of 
manpower will be as prevalent a decade 
hence as now. Unfortunately, the unit 
reported strictly on the basis of past and 
present trends, with l'ittle regard for the 
commonpface findings of industrial sociology 
: that .full employment is bought at 
the ex•pense of endemic under employment, 
that the latter is aLready pricing us 
out of world markets, and that another 
decade of the same practice will bring us 
problems much more severe than a shortage 
of cheap labour. Ironically, the Report 
also notes that "the falling off in 
the number of young people entering the 
labour market . . . will call for adjustments, 
while at the same time making 
for a less adaptable and flexible labour 
force" (p35). It may be that this is where 
the logic of our current economic situation 
is taking us : but it remains a prescription 
for stagnation and eventual decline. 
As the Report also calls for the 
"efficient manpower uti·lisation . . . 
(which becomes) even more essential ... 
with a labour force which will be smaller 
in relation to total population" (p35), it 
must reject the equation of full employment 
with the under employment, inflexi



bility and immobility of labour to which 
we are currently training new entrants to 
industry. 

long term 
economic incentives 

1f the argument above is valid, then one 
conclusion is plain : that the factors underlying 
opposition to further education 
for all, such as stretched labour resources 
and pursuit of short term ':!-~ th~ expe~se 
of long term goals are 1dent1cal w1-th 
the factors underlying our rel,atively pooreconomic performance as compared with 
countries at a comparable stage of economic 
development. This makes us hopeful 
that the decision to implement the 1944 
proposals for further education to the 
full would contribute towards an undermining 
of those forces most resistant to 
necessary changes in our social and 
economic structure. These fa,);l under five 
main headings: a flexible and adaptablelabour force; a mobile labour force ; as 
little under employment and "synthetic" 
overtime as possible ; more voluntarystaying on in ful:l time education ; and 
an improvement in the technicaJ and g_eneral 
education offered by tocal techmcal 
coJ,Jeges. 

The case for ra,dical improvements on 
all five criteria must be synonymous with 
that for part time further education for 
all within a framework of compulsion on 
both employer and student. The terms 
"flexibility" and "adaptability" have been 
used by both Crowther and Newsom, and 
have been assirni}ated into the "conventional 
wisdom" long before they have 
emerged in reality. As concepts, they rest 
on the assumption that the constellatiOn 
of technological changes referred to as 
"automation" will involve, for the majority, 
an increasing frequency o1' "bridging" 
between occupational roles throughout 
the life cycle (J. H. Smith and L. 
Broom, "'Bridging' Occupations", British 
Journal of Sociology, vol 14, pp321-334). 

However, the very occupational roles 
most vulnerable to "de-ski1ling" and redundancy 
for their occupants arc also 
those with least potential for "bridging"', 
as their job content is not transferable 

to other roles. As recent American experience 
has shown, the blow will fall 
most heavily on those llllready at the 
"bottom of the heap". Feasibly, we need 
a further education system capable not 
only of socialising new entrants to industry 
to an awareness of this likelihood, 
and geared to providing them with a 
diversity of skills, but also one which 
functions as a "bridge" for those adults 
who in the future find themselves stripped 
of their "one skill" income producingrole. 

The same a,rguments apply to any call 
for an increasingly mobile Labour force, 
"mobile" at least in the occupationalsense. A corollary of immob~lity is under 
employment: while this is too complex 
a problem to be discussed in any detail 
here, it can at least be noted that the 
"cheap labour" represented by non-
skilled and female, as well as apprenticed, 
manpower is one of the principal 
supports perpetuating the under employment 
of adult workers in industry. As 
long as the flow of entrants into industry 
from the schools is unchecked, while 
the adolescents concerned are untrained 
and only semi-educated, their exploitation 
as "cheap labour" to cover up for 
under employment and low productivity 
wibl continue. The uses to which 15 yearolds were put in industry served as one 
of the main arguments for raising the 
school leaving age to 16 : it still stands 
as such for part time compulsory further 
education to 18 and beyond. 

"dead end" jobs 

At present, although "cheap" in comparison 
with adult male workers, non-skilled 
adolescents in "dead end" jobs receive 
relatively higher wages than ever before: 
this is the incentive for the adolescent 
who has suffered at the hands of the 
school system as an academic "failure" 
to leave and enter the labour market. 
Yet more full time education is obviouslydesirrable: the more complex ~and 
marketable skills become, the longer the 
period of full time education needed to 
acquire them; and the critical awareness 
of our society that is to characterise 


secondary education if Newsom succeeds 
wiLl take longer to convey. Crowther 
hoped for a natural increase in "staying 
on" voluntari·ty: yet the main improvements 
to date are slight, except for that 
produced by the elimination of the 
Christmas leaving date. However, if parttime further education was a necessityfor all, and education was not so much 
brought to a halt as "tapered off" byleaving as early as possible, the impetus 
to stay on full time would be much more 
concrete. The way to encourage more 
full time staying on is not to leave the 
post school leaving situation open, but 
to enforce part time further education. 

Hence the long term economic incentives 
for further education for all are considerable. 
Pressures would be generated on 
employers and unions alike to cut down 
on restrictive practices, the most marked 
of which are systematic overtime and 
institutionalised under employment due 
to demarcation and anti-dilution agreements. 
With a system geared to maximising 
labour mobility and adaptability, 
the fears which underlie these practices 
v.ould begin to be eroded. There is no 
doubt that the Industrial Training Act 
aims at similar ends: but the population 
at which its provisions are aimed is much 
more diverse than that for which further 
education would cater. 

local technical colleges 

An a dditional point is that compulsoryfurther education for all would mean a 
shake up for the present further education 
system : it would be a spur to 
"broadening out" the present narrow 
focus on either purely technical or purely 
"non-vocational" education. As one 
study has shown, too many local technical 
colleges are as out of touch with 
current and 'Prospective manpower needs 
and industrial requirements as the small 
and medium sized firms from which they 
draw too few students (P. F. R. Venables 
and W. J. Wil.liams, The Smaller Firm 
and Technical Education, 1962). 

Unlike the Col.leges of Advanced Tech nology 
and the Regional Colleges, the 

~volutio~ of the local technical colleges 
ts very stmtlar to that of the small firm. 
Their staffs, and the degree of interchange 
between those staffs and local 
industry, are inadequate to meet even 
local needs. It is doubtful whether these 
problems can be solved without the 
drastic overhaul implicit in the complete 
transforation of the local technical coileges 
into colleges of further education 
for all. 

In short, the under employment position 
m mdustry, and the misuse of resources 
in many technical coHeges, means not 
only that there is a great deal of slack 
tc. be taken up via an expanded system 
of further education, but that long term 
economic benefits should accrue if it was 
taken up in this direction. 

apprenticeship

----"'----o-·.~-~-----,


As at present organised in this country, 
apprenticeship functions mainly as a 
buttress for the protection of the skilled 
worker against the semi-skiJ.led and unskilled 
: it serves as a means of regulating 
entry into skilled trades, and this 
function vitiates its effectiveness as a 
vehicle for industrial training. It reduces 
choice, by insisting on 16 as the maximum 
age of entry for school l'eavers ; it 
promotes early leaving, by the same 
token ; it embodies no general standard 
of attainment, mere time serving is 
enough ; and it perpetuates training for 
"one skill" jobs. Moreover, the insistence 
in general on the five year term is at 
odds both with industrial realities and 
the existing practice of most Europeancountries. 

Jn brief, it functions principally as a 
surrogate for civilised industri•al relations 
and control: and this roie militates 
against its use as an educational and 
training a venue. Further education for 
all would be a vehicle for at least modifying 
the worst features of apprenticeship, 
since to eliminate it would be unlikely 
unti-l more enlightened labour relations 
and income security conditions 
prevail. A ful1 scale part time compulsory 
further education system would by



pass the need for apprenticeships, and 
modify its worst side effects. 

no provision for girls 

Although the Crowther Report drew 
attention to the startling disparity between 
the provision of day release and 
other forms of further education for 
girls and the provision for boys, there 
has been very little progress since 1959 
in extending facilities for girls. An ambitious 
project, sponsored by the YWCA 
in 1961-62 in collaboration with the Lee, 
that was based on the assumption that a 
major factor jn the lack of girls' further 
education was the shortage of suitable 
accommodation, met with very little 
success. 

On the other hand, it established beyond 
reasonaible doubt that the main obstacle 
to the expansion of further education 
for girls was the attitude of employers,
especially the~r objection to the devotion 
of working time to general education. 
The provision for gir.ls in part time 
further education is nothing short of a 
public scandal ; only 8 per cent of girls"at risk" receive day release at present(Day Release, appx A, p36), and their 
needs are almost totally ignored by the 
present voluntary further education system. 


Any scheme of compulsory part time 
further education must include girls, who 
are even more likely than boys to be 
used as "cheap labour" for the purposesanalysed above. There are also a number 
of special problems attaching to the 
further education of girls. Early school 
leaving is much more marked amongstgirls than amongst boys, and even 
amongst girls who stay until 16, substantially 
more who would be intellectually 
capable of taking a sixth form course 
choose to leave rather than continue in 
a school atmosphere. This urge to leave 
school and to go out to work is often 
closely related to the fact that a girl in 
her late teens sees her prime role in life 
as a wife and mother, and at that stage is 
less interested in the possilbilities of a 
long term career, even though she may 

be as intellectually capable of following 
one as a boy. 

At present, many girls are used well 
below their intellectual capacity in routine 
jobs in offices and other work, filling 
in time until they get married. They 
may subsequently return to employmentafter a period of chil<i bearing, but with 
only limited skills and experience to 
offer. If· we are to heLp not only the 
Newsom girl, but even some of the girls 
above the Newsom range, to make their 
full contribution to the economy and to 
attain a larger measure of personal development 
as mature women, they need 
a further education which, while it maycontain certain elements, such as the 
commercial skills, shorthand and typewriting 
for example, must also contain 
a personal element which for many maybe related to the home, while for others 
it may be an academic subject, a science 
or a social study, or an aesthetic or cultural 
pursuit. Even more than in the case 
of the boys, it is essential that this element 
of personal choice should be present 
in the girls' curriculum. 

It cannot be stressed too strongly that 
when studies or activities relating to the 
home are included in a girls' curriculum, 
at this stage they must be seen as a 
vehiole of real expanse of education. 
Housecraft must not become a disguised 
form of industrial training, but a real 
and living experience that can be used 
to promote further literacy, discrimination 
and development of mature judgment. 
It is also essential to ensure that 
while a girl may be able to choose as 
the personal part of her education something 
relating to her home and her future 
role as wife and mother, it must not be 
restricted to this range ; where it is possible 
for her to undertake further personal 
academic pursuits, she should be 
encouraged to do so. 

What we are concerned with here is the 
preliminary training upon which further 
training and education may be givenwhen, as a mature woman, whose children 
are at school, she returns to work. 
The pamphlet, Youth's Opportunity, published 
in 1947, suggested that not more 


than five eighths of a young person's day 
should be entirely taken up with material 
deriving from his job. Certainly for girlsit is most important that there should 
be this balance of time devoted to personal 
education. Yet under the Industrial 
T-raining Act, where office staff of 
the lowest grades are to be brought into 
schemes of training and education, they 
wil1 be encouraged to take the Certificate 
of Office Studies which, in its present 
form, is a most unsatisfactory means 
of meeting the professiona;l and personalneeds of girl clerical workers. Four subjects 
have to be taken, three are compulsory: 
English, Office Practice and 
Calculiation (or Accounts), and one other 
subject, from a list that includes, amongstothers, Law, Social Studies and Accounts. 
For this certificate to become an appropriate 
vehicle for the genuine education 
and training of the Newsom girl, the 
compulsory subjects would need to be 
limited to two, English and Office Practice, 
the list of options extended to include 
some purely personal options, and 
the syJ,J.abuses of aJ.l the subjects to be 
looked at real1y carefully with the individual 
students rather than the subjects 
in mind. 

Finally, the firs~ priority of the Industrial 
Training Act remains that of improvingand extending the training offered to 
potentially skilled workers in the staple 
productive industries. Its scope is huge 
even by this definition: it is to cover 
workers at all levels, of all ages and of 
both sexes. But it would be foolish to 
pretend that, even by the early 1970s, 
equal attention and investment will be 
atlocated to the skilled apprentice in engineering 
and the non-skil'led female shop 
assistant or factory operative. The Act 
was aimed particularly at the young,
male, potentially skil·led worker in firiT'~ 
not pulling their weight in the indu~t~ial 
training field ; and if it achieves a level-
ling-up in this sector in the next decade, 
it will have achieved a great deal. But 
those adolescents, and particularly the 
girls, with whom we are most concerned, 
are not likely to be covered by that date: 
they will be last in the queue, non-skil'led 
and often outside t)le productive sector 
in routine distributive or "service" jobs. 

And even when they are covered, it maywell be inappropriately, as we suggestabove: their range wi.tl be extended 
along one narrow dimension only. On 
both counts, that of priority and that of 
content, the Industrial Training Act 
seems unlikely to be the ·answer for the 
Newsom girl in the foreseeable future. 

The question of provision for girls, 
therefore, raises in most acute form the 
deficiencies of an "industrial training"
solution to the problems at issue. We 
believe that the resources at the disposal 
of the Industrial Training Boards could 
best be used in re-training adult workers 
faced with "de-skilling" and redundancy 
prospects : for adolescent workers, the 
problems should be faced in the context 
of a radically re-organised system of 
further education based on compulsoryday release, though the emphasis on 
levying firms to provide concurrent on 
the job training of an acceptable standard 
should still be as vigorously pursued 
as now. 

no middle class support 

It has been argued above that children 
of middle class origin are, broadly speaking, 
already effectively catered for byexisting arrangements, from which they 
have benefited proportionately much 
more than the children of semi-skilled 
and unskilled manual origins. Hence, the 
biggest barrier to any scheme for further 
education for al~ it not necessarily shortage 
of resources, but the structural implications 
of the fact that the middle classes 
have nothing to gain from the extension 
of part time education to the whole age 
group. 

It is likely that the extensions of voluntary 
technical and further education over 
the last decade have taken place. largely 
at the behest of those sections of the 
middle and skilled manual workingclasses whose needs were not met by the 
narrow intake into selective grammar and 
higher forms of education. This makes 
any extrapolation of the expansion of the 
last decade in the voluntary system into 
the future extremely hazardous. It also 


16 

•'' 
means that there is little hope of active 
support from the most vocal and articulate 
sections of society for improvements 
in the education of the Newsom child. 

another route to 
higher education 


As education comes to monopolise the 
capacity for social mobility in our 
society, so the doors to "higher" education 
become increasingly closed to those 
outside the formal education system, 
even though the volume of mobility experienced 
by those within it might increase. 
Unless we can devise alternative 
routes to higher education, the differentials 
in access to it will increase between 
those "staying on" and those leaving 
"early" who subsequently seek reentry. 
As our present system of further 
education i merely echoing this stratif'ication, 
it serves at present not as an 
alternative route to higher education for 
those outside the selective system, but 
a an alternative form of higher education 
, for those within it. 

The extension of further education to all 
would open up just such an alternative 
route as i becoming increasingly desirable 
for New om children who have the 
ability, but reali e it far too late. A 
corollary i obviously that we ell.pandthe base of those entering higher education 
though not necessarily the apex of 
those who continue in it. 

A a recent study has shown (M. Cooper, 
"Why ome Prefer CAT's," New Society, 
4 February, 1965), entJ ants into colleges 
of technology are marginally more iikely 
to be skilled manual in origin than 
middle cla. : the cultural factor which 
working cla · ado! cent and their parents 
share involve a "dis ociation ·· from 
university education a more appropriate 
to "them": a we cannot expect the e 
factors to di appear in the short term, we 
must counter the eliti m of older univeritie 
by evolving in titutional routes to 
form of higher education more conducive 
to attracting working cla entrant . The 
"'city college" i one uch concept. Moreover, 
the work of the! Venables (op.
cit.) has hown the pool of ability among 

the abler boys in local technical schools 
as measured by non-verbal intelligence 
tests. There is no reason to suppose that 
similar potential is absent from those 
not currently being educated beyond the 
age of 15. 

vocational guidance 

----~


At present the Youth Employment Service 
contacts the school leaver tor his 
first job, after which the young worker 
resorts to it with dwindling frequency for 
each successive change of job (M. P. 
Carter, Home, School and Work, 1962).
Except for boys in that :ninority of 
chools employing a careers adviser on 
a full time basis, this is the sole extent 
of vocational guidance offered to the 
adolescent, who feels that the Youth Employment 
Service has little to offer beyond 
routine placements. Psychological 
testing, systematic contact and recordingfor each school leaver finds no place in 
the current Youth Employment Service 

tructure. 

Joan Maizels found an imbaJance in the 
investment of resources, in at least one 
bureau, between first and subsequentplacements, and in econdary modern 
applicants over those from selective 
school , and concluded that "the aims of 
the service are frustrated by the type of 
employment regi tered if, as in the case 
of Willesden, it more frequently represents 
(particularly for boys) the un killed 
or semi-skilled manual work in the very 
smaJ,J firm (op cit, p89). However, if the 
local office of the Youth EmploymentService wa built into the local countycollege, continuity of both acce s and 
contact would be en ured. More ensitive 
and individualised advice could be given. 
Moreover, thi kind of vocational guidance, 
though expensive to admini ter, 
would both enhance the mobiiity of 
young workers and re urrect the Youth 
Employment ervice as an agency of relevance 
for the young worker. 

At pre ent, since large firms are inve ting 
di proportionately in granting their 
best adole cent day release, they would 
~tand to lose promi ing manpower rather 


than the reverse: their opposition to such 
a scheme operating within the present 
system of further education would be inevitable. 
But with all firms sending aJ.I 
their young workers to county collegesfor a minimum of one day in five, large 
firms would stand to gain, as well as 
lose, promising manpower. Within the 
context of further education for aM, there 
would be no obstacles to re-integratingthe Youth Employment Service into the 
young worker's f-rame of reference. 

delinquency 

Delinquency, as measured by court appearances, 
is assumed to be more prevalent 
among Newsom children, by our 
definition, than among any other section 
of the population "at risk": this assumption 
has recently been confirmed in a 
paper by the National Survey of Health 
and Development. At present, however, 
delinquency in this country is mundane 
rather than extremist, its genesis lying in 
a process of drift and "dissociation" 
rather than in appositional and contra-
cultural vaJ:ues. David Matza recentlyargued that delinquency of this type is 
generated by "status anxiety" (the relative 
lack of acoess to legitimate achievement 
or "exploit" in an "achieving'' 
society) ; "preparation" (socialisation in 
a milieu supportive of, though only rarely 
committed to, law breaking) ; and "desperation" 
(the perception of a Jack of 
self-control over one's own "life 
chances") (Delinquency and Drift, 1964). 
Insofar as this analysis horl<ls true, the 
propensity to delinquency will increase 
as disparities in "life chances" grow, or 
become more visible. 

Over the next decade, and despite the 
movement towards comprehensive secondary 
education, these trends appearexceptionally likely to crystallise around 
the transition from school to occupational 
and income producing roles. In 
this situation, a radically re-organised 
system of comprehensive further education 
for all becomes a structural pre-requisite 
in delinquency prevention, not in 
order to forestall "maladjustment'', but 
in order to reduce differentials in both 

educational and occupational opportunities 
at the most crucial transitional stage 
of the "life cycle". 


4. the need for an 
.~ 

experiment 

The basic fatlacy of Crowther was to 
assume that, because the joint aims of 
raising the leaving age to 16 and introducing 
compulsory further education for 
aH were not possible simultaneously, then 
plam for the introduction of each should 
be drawn up separately, and the case 
for each should be made on differingbases. We have tried to show that the 
logic of Newsom demands a joint plan, 
and joint arguments, for both stages. If 
they cannot be implemented simultaneously, 
they at least need to be implemented 
as simultaneously as possible,
and to wait a decade or more would be 
disastrous. 

The need is for a fuU scale regional experiment 
in part time compulsory education 
for all to begin before, not after, 
the raising of the leaving age to 16 in 
1971. If this assumption is made, certain 
preferences follow: the region chosen 
must contain all the problems about 
which decisions have to be made, such 
as whether further education is based on 
work or home residence, and what happens 
when a teenager changes jobs ; the 
region chosen must be a focal point, not 
a backwater ; it would best be in the 
south, since the north is stiH too handicapped 
at the secondary level to undertake 
a full blown regional experiment. 
On all criteria, London is the appropriate 
choice: it contains numerous "problem" 
areas, such as Notting Hill, High-
bury, and parts of the East End; it has 
the commuting problem ; it also has the 
finesc base for pioneering technical and 
further education for aiJ. It was one of 
the areas to attempt to do so in 1918. 
The timing must be at the end of the 
1960s to benefit from the "valley" in agegroup size, before the vast increase in 
numlbers in the 1970s. Greater allocation 
of resources is the obvious priority, but 
if these were granted, the experiment is 
workable. It may be desirable for two or 
three experimental regions to be chosen: 
London, and regions in the North (forexample, Newcastle) and the West Country 
(for example, Bristol). 

The mechanisms devised for approaching 
LEAS and the regions a'bout such a scheme 
must be flexible, must maximise their 

advantages, and be politically acceptable. 
A working party should be set up at once 
to draft such plans in detail : but the 
ignoring of the Rugby experiment since 
1919 is a warning to those who advocate 
piecemeal LEA experiment. This leads on 
to the fundamental requirement that 
Newsom children should not be "siphoned 
off" for further education to institutionally 
separate county colleges. An 
institutional form must be evolved to 
accommodate further education for aJ.I. 

The local technical colleges could we).)

be the basis for this, but must not be 
maintained as separate, selective establishments. 
The general pattern of day release 
on a one day per week 'basis must 
not be rigidly adhered to. The current 
trend to extend block release and sandwich 
courses for technicians and top level 
skiLled workers must be extended as far 
as possible to non-ski.J.Ied grades. But it 
may wel1l be that day release is the best 
pattern for workers who are at presentrated as non-skiJ,Jed, though preferably 
on a two day rather than a one daybasis, since they may be hostile to prolonged, 
continuous periods in further 
education. Also, further education should 
not stop at 18, but be extendable to 19 
or even 20. 

student attitude 

The Fisher experiment in compulsoryday release in the early 1920s failed for 
two reasons. First, there was sustained 
opposition from both employers and 
from students and their parents, and 
secondly there was gross inadequacy of 
resources ; neither buildings nor equipment 
nor teachers wer.! available in sufficient 
quantity. This last factor led to the 
opening of schemes for compulsory day 
release at different dates in adjoininglocal education authorities, and the discrepancy 
that existed from one area to 
another was a further cause of great dissatisfaction. 


The opposition of the employers would 
not have been sufficient to kiJ.l the scheme 
had it not been actively reinforced! byreluctance on the part of students to 


attend and the unwitlingness of parents 
to support the idea of continued education. 
This experiment was, of course, terminated 
by the Government economies 
embodied in the notorious "Geddes 
Axe". Many people still fear an unholyal,J'iance of employer, parent and youngperson will kii'l any attempt to implementthe "county conege" provision l of the 
1944 Act. It is quite true that attitudes 
towards education shade off through the 
population from enthusiasm at the upper 
levels through indifference in the middle 
ranges to mistrust and open hostility at 
the bottom. 

For most of the children in the Newsom 
group school and education has not been 
an experience of abso.rbing interest and 
excitement unless they have been exceptionally 
fortunate in their teachers. If 
what they encounter in further education 
is merely a repetition of an unsatisfactory 
experience at school then their attitude 
is likely to be one of suspicion and 
eventual hostility. If they meet a new 
curriculum that relates directly to their 
life as they see it, that seems both to encourage 
and make possible their personal 
aspirations, and, above all, treats them 
like responsible adults, they may respond 
very differently. 

Yet the position today is quite different, 
in that while employers might still be 
reluctant to release students who were 
not going to train for skil'ls that could 
be immediately employed within the firm, 
the prospective students themselves and 
their parents are much more alive to the 
value of continued education. Students, 
too, are older. The Fisher scheme was 
concerned with day continuation from 
14 to 15, and the general level of sophistication 
of young people in the 1920s was 
much lower than the present time. The 
further education to be provided in 
county coJ,Jeges was to be for students 
of 15, 16 after the raising of the school 
leaving age, until 18, and today's young 
people, thanks to the continuing period 
of relatively full employment, a;re much 
more independent. 

There is at present in many technical 
colleges a firm belief in the unwillingness 

of students to attend college unless there 
is a clear vocational carrot. Many teachers 
are convinced that students will reject 
education that is not clearly vocational 
in character, and they doubt the 
success of both courses in genera! education 
and the general studies portions of 
existing technical courses. Studies that 
have been made of students' ifeaction to 
day release seem to confirm the prevalent 
view. These studies invariably ignore 
the actual provision of general education 
and of general studies, and its unsatisfactory 
character in many colleges and 
the effect of bad courses on students. 
Student reluctance to parti·cipate in any 
kind of course is not an absolute quality 
but depends upon what is provided and 
how it is provided. We know that the 
characteristic attitude of Newsom children 
is that they wish to leave school as 
quickly as possible, but it was the hope 
of the authors of the Newsom Reportthat if the principles underlying the curriculum 
that they suggested were 
adopted, then this eagerness to leave 
school might be overcome. 

If similar principles can be introduced 
into the provision of further education 
courses then the alleged reluctance of 
students to enter further education willingly 
may weH vanish. Experience in a 
number of further education collegesconfirms this point of view, and the best 
teaching in furthu education at the present 
time, whether on the technical portions 
of courses o·r on those sections devoted 
to general studies, would appear 
to embody the characteristics that Half 
our Future says should mark the new 
sty;le of secondary education, that is that 
it should be vocational, practical, realistic 
and should offer the student the 
possibility of choice. 

choice of course 

It is necessary to comment upon the 
word "vocational" in this sense. In practice 
a vocational course usually means a 
course sanctioned by an employer or a 
trade or professional organisation, such 
as a National Certificate course or a City 
and Guild~ course, or one of the courses 


sponsored by the retail trades. Other· 
work not falling within the scope of 
these courses or their attendant examillations 
is lumped together as general education. 
Much of what is studied in these 
"vocational" courses bears litt:Jle relation · 
to the jobs which are actually being undertaken 
by the students, or, in some 
cases, ever likely to be undertaken bythe students. Many of the items which 
might appear in the general studies portions 
of, for example, a general engineering 
course, such as a discussion of systems 
of authority with relation to the 
role of foremen and supervisors or a 
consideration of problems arising from 
conditions of work or from the human 
relationships at a place of work, mayhave far more relevance to a young per-
son's immediate life and future prospects 
than the mathematics and engineeringscience and workshop processes of the 
rest of the course. "Vocational" used in 
this sense may well be applied to anyportion of a course in which a studenc 
perceives a relevance between what he is 
studying and any adult role he envisages 
himself playing in the future. 

There can be no real hard and fast line 
drawn between the kinds of colltfses at 
present being provided in .local technical 
colleges and the kinds of course which 
may be devised to meet the operatives 
who wilrf be coming into the colleges under 
the terms of the Industrial Training 
Act, and, eventually, all the young people 
to whom the 1944 Act promises "day release". 
The elements may not always be 
as specific in a vocationa:l sense as the 
present very tightly drawn courses are, 
but apart from the basic subjects of education 
ensuring literacy and numeracy, 
there must be provision for the mechanical 
skills that will lay the basis of possible 
further adaptation and development 
of the students at a •later stage. 

In at least one college there has been an 
attempt to give expression to these principles. 
The timetable has been so arranged 
that it is possible for students to 
choose between what is offered in all the 
departments, and to make up a timetable 
consisting of elements drawn from subjects 
with an academic content, subjects 

of a more persona:! character, and subjects 
which have a direct bearing on the 
student's work ; for example, a ty:pist 
may take a purely "vocational" course of 
shorthand, typewriting, office practiceand English, but if the only commercial 
skill she was interested in and that her 
employer required was typewriting, she 
might have a programme consisting of 
typew.riting, dressmaking, film studyand chemistry ("0" level). These are 
actual examples of timetables being followed 
in the College. By offering subjects 
and activities at different levels, it is possible 
to make a tailormade timetable for 
a majority of students. If thought were 
given to the existing interests and possible 
lines of development of the Newsom 
children, who are at present excluded 
from day release, it should be 
possible to devise courses within a timetable 
of this pattern. Students could then 
choose a combination of subjects and activities 
that would seem to them relevant 
to thei1' life and pertinent to their interests. 


[n this particular college the timetable 
consists of three sessions of two hours 
and one session of an hour. Air! follow 
the same pattern and therefore the possibilities 
of combinations of subjects and 
activities drawn from different departments 
is enormous. Where necessary two 
periods of two hours can be allocated to 
a given field of study and three hours 
are still disposable for other choices. 

not too bitty 

Some critics condemn the day release 
pattern because they say it is too bitty. 
The rival attractions of full time and 
block courses seem so much greater to 
the casual view that some teachers may 
hesitate to recommend any extension of 
the existing provision of day release 
courses. This is unfortunate because from 
the student's point of view day release 
is not always so bitty as it might seem. 
A regular attendance at an intelligently 
run institution throughout the yea:r wit]]
be keeping him in touch with an educational 
atmosphere that will seem, not 
something special and extra, like going 


21 

off to attend a block course, but an 
essential part bf the pattern and fabric 
of his ordinary life. 

Education alongside work can be especiaJ'ly 
effective for the type of young person 
we have in mind, especially if there 
is close coHa:boration between the firm 
and the educational institution aRd the 
Youth Employment Officer. Teachers 
who have not experienced teaching in an 
institution that is mainly concerned with 
day release students may believe that it 
is not possible to establish a satisfactory 
relationship with different group~ each 
day of the week. To some extent this is 
illusory. A teacher who teaches for 20 or 
22 "contact" hours during the week on a 
programme of the kind outlined above 
would meet 10 or 11 different groups in 
a week . Some fuN time specialist teachers 
in secondary schools do this already, in 
much shorter teaching periods. Full time 
teaching under such conditions can be 
very much more bitty than teaching day 
release classes. 

local colleges for all 

A further thought arises which deserves 
the most serious consideration, especially 
at this moment when schemes for the reorganisation 
of secondary education are 
being laid down that will set a patternfor the next half century. Even if selection 
for type of school" is aboiished at 11 , 
a comprehensive system cannot be t'r.ulycomprehensive if at the age of 16 one 
group of pupils leaves school to follow 
part time, or even full time; education in 
another institution. while the selected 
minority continue in the highly privileged 
atmosphere of a sixth form. The veryexistence of a sixth form within a school 
al.ready introduces a measure of dillerentiation 
weU below the level of the sixth 
form between those who are going to 
stay and those who are going to leave. 
This differentiation will be reflected not 
merely in a difference of curriculum but 
in the reciprocal attitudes of staff and 
pupils. 

If aJ.l the young people leave school at 
16 and proceed to a local coHege, some 

of them to undertake full time courses 
and some part time education side byside until 18 or 19, several advantageswould ensue. Many young people, especial'ly 
g.irls, leave education at 16 because 
they have outgrown the atmosphere of 
school and the teacher pupil relationship 
characteristic of it. It is difficult to 
modify this relationship within an institution 
that contains children of 11 and 
12 years old as we]i] as young people of 
16 to 18. The establishment of an appropriate 
relationship is much easier within 
a college designed specifically for young 
adults. This is the familiar argument for 
the junior coLlege. It is immeasurablystrengthened iif we include within the college 
not only the traditional sixth form 
courses, but elements to be found within 
the local colleges such as pre-apprenticeship 
courses, pre-nursing courses, secretariaJ 
courses, full time and block 
courses, and all the day release courses, 
both those already in existence and those 
eventually to come. 

As has already been found in many further 
education colleges, students on GCE 
courses profit considerably from the contacts 
they establish through education, 
alongside young people already at work. 
Transfer from one course to another 
would be facilitated. A student, finding 
himself on an academic course which did 
not satisfy him, could transfer to the 
alternative technical or commercial route 
within the same institution. The transfer 
would be easier than at present and 
would not involve a loss of status or a 
sense of fa1llllfe. The process would also 
operate in reverse. Early leavers who 
later regret their departure from fu!J time 
education, and who at present often find 
it difficult to return, could move easilyback into the type of full time education 
best adapted to their developing interests. 

The abolition of sixth forms would entail 
the disa,ppearance of the "experience of 
leadership" which a minority of sixth 
formers enjoy, and on which head teachers, 
especia-lly those in grammar schools, 
place such store. Experience of leadership 
within what tends to be an authoritarian 
hierachy, however liberal its tyranny, 
may still not be as valuable as 


1~1 

the genuine democratic experience a 
good Uocal college could provide. 

Finally, a careful examination of this 
proposal might reveai unexpected but 
substantial economies that could be 
made, both of plant and of teaching 
power. The teacher student ratio in further 
education is very favourable when 
compared with the ratio in primaryschools, but many s1xth form ratios, because 
of the points system by which the 
establishment is calcuLated, may be even 
more favourable in fact than in theory.
A scheme of local coileges, which would 
use in some cases new 'bui.ldings and in 
others former g-rammar school buildings 
made available by the development of 
comprehensive schools and the elimination 
of sixth forms, would permit slightlyhuger and more economic teaching 
groups than often obtain at :present,
while still keeping classes down to reasonable 
levels of, for example, not more 
than 20-24 pupils. 

incentives and sanctions 

If the problem of students' attitudes 
cou~d be regarded as being solved, the 
problem of resources in short supply is 
still very much with us. Unless a targetdate is fixed, however, when a scheme 
for compulsory day release is to be 
adopted, resources wiLl never become 
available. The Industria:! Training Act 
can either become a milestone on the 
way towards a compul~ory scheme, or it 
can prove a major deterrent to its establishment. 
While no doubt industrial training 
may provide incentives for learningfor most of the young :people involved, 
the fact that those most difficult to motivate 
will be excluded from its operation 
may lead to the neglect of the problem 
of incentives, so that even industrial 
training may not achieve all it could do. 
Its value as a stage on the journey to 
compulsory day release for aU may be 
minimised unless there is a experiment in 
compu!'sion that can act as a control. 

How can a student be compelled to 
attend? Compulsory attendance cannot 
be enforced as attendance at school is 

enforced at present by laying the onus 
on the parent to ensure attendance. Today's 
young people are often quite independent 
of their parents and not onlywouLd they regll'rd any such provision as 
abhoflrent, but their parents might be 
quite incapable of enforcing their attendance 
against their wil.J. 

The most effective way of ensuring attendance 
wouLd be to regard attendance 
at an institution of further education as 
an integral part of employment until the 
young person had attained the age of 18 
and to lay the onus to ensure attendance 
on the employer. Absence from coilegewould be notified to the employer as is 
done for the students at present attending 
under the vo.lunta~ry scheme. Absence 
from the coHege would amount to a,bsence 
from work and would carry with 
it the ross of a day's pay, and this would 
be the simplest and the most effective 
sanction that could 'be easily devised. 

where to experiment 

We need to show what can be done with 
a completely non-selected group of students 
attending a local college. We need 
to experiment on a large scale with 
teaching techniques, programmes and syllabuses 
that may have been found useful 
in other colleges, and therefore we need 
to select an area in which an experimentin compulsion can be tried which is big 
enough to provide a viable experiment, 
and which is sufficiently self -contained to 
minimise the friction that might occur on 
the maTgin between the area of compulsion 
and the area of voluntary further 
education. 

An obvious area for first consideration is 
the Greater London Council. The GLC 
is a unity in a sense that its constituent 
boroughs are not. The problem of accommodition, 
while it is a very difficult 
one, would not be insuperable if we do 
not think in terms of wishing all students 
in new buildings. There would need to 
be some new building, but not all of this 
need be at the local college level. New 
secondary schools would release, as they 
are doing at present, older buildings 



which, thougr. far from ideal, could be 
adapted as further education colleges for 
the time being, and if all the boroughs 
were to establish, or even to begin to 
establish, the local colleges which theyshould be building, many of the students 
who at present travel in to the ILEA area 
to receive thei'r further educati'on would 
be able to foHow home based courses. 

teacher shortages 

The problem of teachers is a much more 
difficult one. If the GLC were selected as 
an area in which to try a compulsoryexperiment, a large percentage of the 
total age group would be covered. This 
fact, which makes the proposal so attractive, 
might also be the reason for not 
accepting the GLC as a trial area, because 
it might involve the commitment of too 
large a volume of resources. 

An alternative suggestion wouLd be that 
two much smaller areas, but of differingcharacter with different problems, might 
be selected ; for example, the north east 
region or some portion of it, and the 
south west region or some detachable 
po·rtion of it, such as Bristol. The same 
problems of accommodation and teacher 
supply would present themselves as in the 
GLC, but perhaps not to the same degree 
of severity. The investment of resources 
in educational facilities iJn the north east 
region, which is a development area, 
would probably be met by some new 
building, hy taking over the margins of 
secondary accommodation as they fall 
vacant, and by an imaginative use of 
unorthodox accommodation following upthe lead, for example, of the YWCA who, 
some years ago, proposed that their 
hostef accommodation might be used' for 
the promotion of day release schemes for 
girls. Unfortunately, this scheme did not 
receive the success it deserved because 
of the reluctance of employers to release 
gilfls for anything but the narrowest vocational 
courses (F. D. Flower, "Failure of 
an Experiment", Education, February,
1965). 

In aJ.l a,reas, the main problem would be 
the shortage of teachers. Teacher short


age is a growing problem for education 
as a whole, and can only be solved first 
by an expansion of supply through an 
extended secondary education and an expanded 
programme of higher education. 
It might be mitigated by the introduction 
of teaching machines on a large scale, 
not in order that machines should replace 
teachers, but that they might so 
organise their work that larger classes 
could be divided between tutorial work 
with a teacher and more formal routine 
work on a machine. Improvements in the 
remunerative and professional status of 
the teacher would naturally also assist in 
recruitment. 

The short term problem of a substantial 
increase in further education teachers in 
the areas selected for compulsion could 
be met by a planned expansion of placesin the technical teacher training colleges 
for teachers, especiaHy earmarked for 
these a-reas. A scheme of unorthodox recruitment 
is needed that would accept 
suitable applicants into the professionand provide courses of in-service training 
based on the senior technical colleges, 
and involve a careful reconsideration of 
the academic standards which l!lfe regarded 
as a minimum for entry into further 
education. It should not be impossible, 
if these steps are adopted, to provide 
the number of teachers required to 
man the scheme in the selected areas 
proposed. 

These proposals would cal1 for not more 
than 3,000 full time teachers for the 
scheme in the GLC area or .for 300-500 
teachers in each of the other two areas. 
Present practice would seem to be that 
colleges are expected to cover at least 
25-30 per cent of their work by part time 
staff and it would be possible to increase 
the ~mount of work covered by part time 
teachers to well beyond that percentage.
In coming decades, we shaH inevitably 
employ increasing numbers of part time 
teachers. Whether or not their excessive 
use in schools would lead to adverse consequences, 
there is no doubt that theyhave a positive role to play in further 
education, where in any case it is easier 
to find a satisfactory ni'che for them than 
in schools. 


The presence of university institutions 
in all three of the areas proposed for the 
experiment suggests a limited source of 
supply for part time teachers among post 
graduate students. The increased provision 
of practical activities of all kinds 
would suggest other sources of part time 
teachers of a quite different kind. It must 
be emphasised, however, that the core of 
any scheme of this kind, if it is to be 
successful, must be a team of experiencedand dedicated teachers who must be 
assembled in good time in the institutions 
which will form the kernel of any experiment 
in compulsory day release. 

CONCLUSION 

We have argued that the success of New-
som's proposaJs rests to an as yet unrecognised 
extent on e<llrly implementationof the Crowther proposals for compulsory, 
part time further education for all 
until the age of at least 18. A regional 
experiment should, therefore, be started 
up before the raising of the leaving age 
to 16. Preferably, this would be scheduled 
for 1968-9, and would cover tile 
Greater London area and1or two other 
regions such as those centred on Bristol 
and Newcastle. Even if this were accomplished, 
further education for all on a 
national scale would still lie in the late 
1970s. Unless this possibility is re-opened, 
however, prospects for the Newsom child 
are gloomy, since his fate will be left to 
the free play of the l·abolllr market in an 
increasingly uncertain economic future, 
and no protection will be afforded him 
by the combined operation of an enlight· 
ened furthe·r education system and a reoriented 
secondary education. 


fabian society 


"he Fabian Society exists to further 
ocialist education and research. It is 
ffiliated to the Labour Party, both naionally 
and locally, and embraces all 
hades of Socialist opinion within its 
anks-left, right and centre. 

ince 1884 the Fabian Society has en-
oiled thoughtful socialists who are preared 
to discuss the essential questions 
f democratic socialism and relate them 

o practical plans for building socialism 
1 a changing world. 
leyond this the Society has no collecive 
policy. It puts forward no resoluions 
of a political character, but it is 
ot an organisation of armchair social;
ts. Its members are active in their 
,abour Parties, Trade Unions and Co


•peratives. They are representative of 
he labour movement, practical people 
oncerned to study and discuss problems 
hat matter. 
-he Society is organised nationally and 
cally. The national Society, directed 
1y an elected Executive Committee, pubishes 
pamphlets, and holds schools and 
onference<J of many kinds. Local Socieies-
there are some 80 of them-are 
elf governing and are lively centres of 
liscussion and also undertake research. 

~nquiries about membership should be 
ent to the general secretary, Fabian 
lociety, 11 Dartmouth Street, London, :wt ; telephone Whitehall 3077. 

the authors 


David Downes is a Lecturer in Social 
Administration at the London School of 
Economics. 

Fred Flower is the Principal of KingswayCollege, London, and was a member of 
the Newsom Committee. 

The authors would like to thank Jean 
Stovin, of Kingsway College, Peter Willmott 
and Patrick McGeeney, of the Institute 
of Community Studies, and John 
Lyons, of Crownwoods School, Eltham, 
for their assistance and advice. 

Cover design and typography by Geoffrey 
Cannon. Printed by The Walrus 
Press Ltd. (ru), 769 Harrow Road, Sud-
bury, Wembley, Middlesex. 


recent fabian pamphlets 


research senes 

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tracts 


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and Peggy Jay 
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Brazil : the dilemma of reform 
the democratic firm 
the stranger at the gate 
the Co-operatives at the crossroads 
Australian Labour and the world 
a plan for incomes 
why steel 
long distance road haulage 

th-.r-____sile so_·e7____________

e-,respon~b7___c,ty 

can Labour win? • 
Labour in the affluent society • ·· • 
out of stagnationplanning for progress 
pension rights and wrongs 
the meaning of work 
a Labour Britain and the world 
freedom in the Welfare State 
the administrators 
new patterns for primary schools 
Britain in NATO 
trade and international inequality 

the family and the social services 
creating the Atlantic Community 
why local democracy 
the new economy 
company law reform 

young fabian pamphlets 


6 DavTd Steele 
7 Howard Glennerster 
8 
and Richard Pryke 
Jonathan Radice 
9 a study group 

other pamphlets 

Michael Pease 
Mary Stewart 


more -power to the r egions 

the public schools 
transportgeneral practice 

parish and district councils 
unpaid public service 

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