Rationalisation of higher education: The need for a reassessment

Abstract

Advanced economies like our own require an increasing number of boys and girls to follow higher education. But will those qualified and desirous of following it find places available? It depends on the level of resources allotted to this sector of social expenditure and how they are used. Industry ensures the economic use of resources through rationalisation. Under‐utilisation of capital and labour and the overlapping of productive and service activities lead to reassessment and reorganisation. The strategy of optimising output is constantly attempted. Will the scarcity of resources in the seventies hasten a reassessment of higher education on the lines of the Report of the Percy Committee on Higher Technological Education (1946). The Minister of Education accepted its recommendations and issued Circular 87 (1946) entitled The Regional Organisation of Further Education. The circular is the first attempt by the government to state how the economic use of resources in higher education can be secured. Regional Advisory Councils, already existing in some parts of the country, were to be established to cover all parts. LEAs were asked to confer with universities and university colleges on setting up the councils and determining their constitution. Since the universities were then the major centres of higher education, although there were a few major technical colleges, this seemed an appropriate line of action.

Citation

GORE, T. (1971), "Rationalisation of higher education: The need for a reassessment", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 3 No. 6, pp. 282-285. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb003143