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This year's conference must surely go down in ATTI annals as the hottest ever. Not that it was tempers inflamed — the radical left did their militant duty and little else. But Manchester defied its reputation and gave us steaming hot weather throughout. Nice for those stretched out on the Piccadilly hotel patio, excruciating for the rest of us incarcerated in the Grand's basement ballroom. Jugs of iced water disappeared as fast as they could be filled. And perspiring delegate after delegate made cracks about ‘having a long cool look at salary policy’ and ‘the further education sweat‐shop’. Yet the city in many ways was an excellent choice boasting of that loyal protector of the FE faith Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, and Frank Hatton chairman of the new Local Authorities' Higher Education Committee, both of whom were guests at the conference dinner.

Kathleen Ollerenshaw examines the need for a closer relationship between educational supply and industrial demand.

Why are there so few trained women working in industry today? This is an age in which we need to make use of all the talent we have. It is an age of opportunity, both for new and expanding industries and for the young people of ability themselves. Are girls taking full advantage of the new openings there are for them, and is industry sufficiently aware of the great contribution girls can make? Dr Ollerenshaw surveys the trends in recruitment and employment of women and girls in industry and commerce and makes some eminently realistic suggestions for the future.

Various themes were woven into this year's annual conference of the Institute of Youth Employment Officers — Higher Education, the position of girls, experience from overseas, relations with Further Education, the training of YEOs, extending upwards the agerange dealt with by the Service. Some present wanted to say much more about relations with industry and the trade unions, but clearly it is not possible to cover every aspect of this wide field in one conference.

At a time when a great deal of attention is being given to the operation of equal opportunity and equal pay, it is proper for those engaged in further education to consider the extent to which the education system itself is reinforcing or helping to overcome disadvantages which women have traditionally encountered in their careers. The plight of the qualified teachers who cannot obtain employment is only one side of a coin, of which the reverse is the almost total absence of women on further education courses designed to equip them to be applied scientists, engineers, and technologists. The traditional avenues of tertiary education chosen by girls have been designed to equip them for careers in education and the health services.

To supplement the well‐known instructor training courses at Letchworth Government Training Centre, a second Instructor Training College has recently been opened at the Hillington GTC, Glasgow.

Margaret Miles, one of the country's most prominent head‐mistresses suggests that one way of removing the problem is to abolish girls' schools.

The Government has given the go‐ahead for spending twice as much on polytechnic building as at present. Mrs Thatcher's statement, coming just after the opening of this session of Parliament, confirms that she is looking to the polytechnics to provide the major expansion of higher education during the 1980s — but the amount that the polytechnics will get for their buildings is still running at about half the total the universities receive. For the year 1973/4 FE building projects will be authorized to start to a value of £37 million, of which £16 million is intended for polytechnics. Next year, 1972/3, only £8 million will be spent on polys, as compared to £4.8 million this year. As a point of comparison, during the past few years building for universities has totalled £25–£30 million annually.

Staffing needs at ATI Conference. “Why isn't he on the Burnham Committee?” This was the reaction of several people to the outstanding address given to the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Technical Institutions by Mr E. L. Russell, Chief Education Officer, Birmingham, on the Demand for Technical Teachers. Committee C of the National Advisory Committee is indeed fortunate in its Chairman, Sir Willis Jackson, and deputy chairman, Mr Russell. They have already done more in a couple of years to focus national interest on the need for technical teachers than was achieved at any previous stage in the development of technical education. Mr Russell's paper added still further to the body of information being accumulated.