Since teachers are more strongly represented in the Commons than any other single profession, one would expect their influence there to be considerable. There are at present some…
Abstract
Since teachers are more strongly represented in the Commons than any other single profession, one would expect their influence there to be considerable. There are at present some 32 members of the National Union of Teachers in the House; they include the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, the Secretary of State for Education and one of his predecessors, a Minister of State for Education, a Government Whip and five other ministers. There are another 11 MPs from the ranks of the NUT‐affiliated Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions, and two from the National Association of Schoolmasters, plus a third who acts as an unofficial spokesman in the House.
Top officials of the Inner London Education Authority will be going into the field next term to explain to headmasters, division by division, just what the authority means by its…
Abstract
Top officials of the Inner London Education Authority will be going into the field next term to explain to headmasters, division by division, just what the authority means by its notorious Sixth Form Plan — the plan about which the teachers' associations have said that it causes ‘very grave disquiet’ and that ‘the systematic imposition of the proposals could be in some cases educationally disastrous’.
Public sympathy — whether you measure it by last night's cocktail party or this morning's letter columns — has not been noticeably strong towards university dons over the failure…
Abstract
Public sympathy — whether you measure it by last night's cocktail party or this morning's letter columns — has not been noticeably strong towards university dons over the failure of their 15 per cent pay claim and the other passing insults offered them by the Prices and Incomes Board. It is not too hard to see why. A public brought up on the novels of Kingsley Amis and C. P. Snow, with perhaps Rowlandson's cartoons as a visual aid, is naturally going to think of dons as idle, bitchy and overfed. Television appearances add the impression that they are also overpaid.
About seventy colleges are already involved in submitting individualized computer data on further education students to the DES. The final report on the 1970 pilot scheme, carried…
Abstract
About seventy colleges are already involved in submitting individualized computer data on further education students to the DES. The final report on the 1970 pilot scheme, carried out by the Systems Group on FE student statistics, has just been completed, recommending a total reform of the way in which student statistics are collected. The individualized data scheme is to be introduced in stages, to include all colleges by 1974.
Clive Bingley, Clive Martin and Helen Moss
MELVYN BARNES, Borough Librarian & Arts Officer of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (London), was asked to prepare a report for his libraries committee on the possibility…
Abstract
MELVYN BARNES, Borough Librarian & Arts Officer of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (London), was asked to prepare a report for his libraries committee on the possibility of selling withdrawn library books to the public—that rumbling bandwagon which inevitably looks attractive to local authorities in hard times.
Since March 16th the ban on the use of soya in the manufacture of sausages has been removed. The lifting of this restriction, which has been in force since 1946, will be welcomed…
Abstract
Since March 16th the ban on the use of soya in the manufacture of sausages has been removed. The lifting of this restriction, which has been in force since 1946, will be welcomed by some manufacturers who claim that soya is an excellent binding agent. We are doubtful, however, whether these sentiments will be shared by all public analysts, many of whom are of the opinion that the presence of soya in a sausage renders the determination of the meat content if not wholly impossible at best a series of long and tedious processes, the accuracy of which would seem to be a matter of some controversy. Upon our enquiry about this divergency of opinion to the Ministry of Food, we were told that the Ministry were quite satisfied that the new Order could be properly enforced, in other words we assume this to mean that they consider the presence of soya does not prevent the accurate determination of the meat content. This was the answer one would expect to receive from the authority who framed the Meat Products Order, but it is none the less surprising to recall that only a very short while ago the Ministry were of the reverse opinion. In May 1950 a report was published in this Journal of a case heard before Old Street Magistrates. The defendants were summoned under The Meat Products, Canned Soup and Canned Meat (Control and Maximum Prices) Order, 1946, for selling sausages which contained soya. The Order stated that no persons should manufacture or sell any sausage, slicing sausage or sausage meat which to his knowledge contained any soya product. The prosecuting solicitor, for the Ministry of Food, said that it was necessary under the Order of 1946 for sausages to contain a minimum meat content, and if soya flour were used to bind the sausage it was not possible upon analysis to determine the meat content. It would be interesting to know whether the results of research during the past two years have made available new and efficient methods of examination which justify this change of viewpoint. We are advised, however, that if soya is present the amount of meat cannot be accurately assessed, and, moreover, the percentage error of this determination is likely to be directly related to the percentage of soya in the sausage. Thus it would seem possible that this new piece of legislation provides an added incentive to an unscrupulous manufacturer to prepare his mix with a lower meat content than that prescribed and to make up the balance with soya: a practice which would enable him to make more sausages than his honest competitor, and which would probably be difficult to expose.
The enormous improvement in child health in this country—in infant mortality and morbidity, in physical growth and well‐being, are self‐evident. Not only do we see the physical…
Abstract
The enormous improvement in child health in this country—in infant mortality and morbidity, in physical growth and well‐being, are self‐evident. Not only do we see the physical improvement in our children, but it strikes visitors from overseas more forcibly, and there can be few other countries in the world which can boast such swarms of healthy, vigorous children. If this was preventive medicine's only success, it would be worth many times over the money spent on this branch of the National Health Service, which is little enough in all conscience: about £20 millions a year compared with over £400 millions for curative medicine. Can any of the undoubted great and dramatic advances of the latter match the far‐reaching effects of this one achievement of preventive medicine?
Michael Francis Doyle, Megan Williams, Tony Butler, Anthony Shakeshaft, Katherine Conigrave and Jill Guthrie
The purpose of this study is to describe what a sample of men in prison believe works well for the delivery of prison-based group alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment programs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe what a sample of men in prison believe works well for the delivery of prison-based group alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment programs. The authors hope the findings will help inform future practise in AoD program delivery in prison.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research paper reporting on a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 30 male prisoners on their perspectives on AoD group treatment approaches.
Findings
Results indicate that matching readiness and motivation to start treatment is important for group success. Program content must be relevant and delivered by empathic facilitators who maintain confidentiality. It would be advantageous if one of the program facilitators was a peer with personal experience of overcoming an AoD use disorder.
Originality/value
According to the authors’ knowledge, this is one of few qualitative studies into the delivery of AoD treatment for men in prison and the only study of its kind in Australia. The consumer perspective is an important element in improving quality of treatment provision.
Details
Keywords
The recent publication of Cysticercosis—an Analysis and Follow‐up of 450 Cases, by Drs. Dixon and Lipscombe (M.R.C. Special Report, Series No. 299) which is believed to contain…
Abstract
The recent publication of Cysticercosis—an Analysis and Follow‐up of 450 Cases, by Drs. Dixon and Lipscombe (M.R.C. Special Report, Series No. 299) which is believed to contain information relating to all human infestations with C. Cellulosœ in this country up to 1957, prompts one to look at another picture of cysticercosis, viz., C. bovis in cattle. Almost all the cases of human cysticercosis followed up in the report were among British service personnel who had served in India and other eastern sectors, but chiefly India. Since no British troops have served in this area for the past 13 years, human cysticercosis, always a rare disease, is becoming even rarer.
We have on many occasions drawn attention to the all too prevalent fallacy of judging the nutritive and dietetic value of foods solely by their chemical composition without regard…
Abstract
We have on many occasions drawn attention to the all too prevalent fallacy of judging the nutritive and dietetic value of foods solely by their chemical composition without regard to the digestibility of the foods, and to the more or less prevalent idiosyncrasies of the public in connection with such foods. In an excellent article in The Times, Sir Wyndham Dunstan observes that “it has to be remembered that, however desirable the constituents of a given material may seem, in order to be of real value that material must be digestible— capable of assimilation within the body. In this matter of digestion people differ greatly and there must be latitude in the choice of food. While consumption in quantity of uncooked green and other vegetables is widely advocated, many are unable easily to digest some vegetables unless cooked, and not always then except in very moderate amount. Many other factors have to be taken into account in planning a common dietary. There are different tastes and preferences. The appeal a particular food makes to the individual and the appetite it stimulates are important points. The psychological factor plays a significant part and must be met by providing as wide a selection of palatable food as possible. These are a few truisms often overlooked.” With regard to the kind of bread we should eat and ought to be made to eat in war‐time, the writer observes that “there is unanimity in regarding a wholemeal bread (not always the same thing as “brown” bread) as that which should be generally eaten and readily procured. This is not at present the rule. Should it be made so? The constituents of wholemeal bread supply not only nourishment for the body but protection against ill‐health. Some of the more valuable constituents are absent from the white bread, so long the staple of this country, because they have been removed in the conversion of the wheat into white flour, which is now often further whitened and further deteriorated by a chemical bleaching agent. White bread is therefore a sophisticated and inferior food to which we have grown so accustomed that its use has become an ingrained habit. The obvious course in the circumstances, especially in war‐time, would be to compel the use of wholemeal bread and prohibit white bread. But, though such a course would be for the good of the nation, a sudden change of the kind, however beneficial, is bound to be inconvenient, if not distasteful, to many who are attached to white bread, and particularly to those who do not, or cannot, understand the need for change. There are people who say they can digest white bread more easily than “brown.” Thus it happens that the Ministry of Food, advised by numerous experts and confronted with numerous objectors, is apparently in favour of the evasive alternative of restoring artificially to white bread one at least of the valuable constituents it has lost in manufacture without impairing its whiteness. At first it was intended to do this by adding to white flour suitable quantities of two chemically prepared substances, one a vitamin and the other a calcium compound. Recently the synthetic vitamin only has been indicated as the proposed addition. This seems a clumsy and unnecessary concession to sentiment, involving considerable expenditure. It has been widely critised and regarded as “faking” bread. An eminent physician, Sir Ernest Graham Little, while condemning the proposal on general grounds, also questions its efficacy. Why first remove a natural constituent of wheat in making flour and then afterwards, at a cost, add to the flour this constituent artificially manufactured: He presents a convincing case for the use of wholemeal bread. With regard to the argument that some people dislike wholemeal bread and find it less easy to digest, it may be doubted whether many of them have eaten true wholemeal. “Brown” breads, including bread made with coarse ground wheat or bran and also several varieties of “brown” bread sold under largely advertised names, are almost everywhere procurable at higher prices than white bread. Fine wholemeal bread as well as flour is less easy to find. Large numbers of people eat very little bread, and it is therefore of small importance to them whether it is wholemeal or white. They consume far less than the three‐quarters of a pound a day included in Sir William Bragg's basal diet and make up for it with other foods which they can afford to buy. A really nutritious bread chiefly concerns the poorer classes, who eat much more bread than those better off. For the poor the substitution of wholemeal bread for white is a matter of far‐reaching importance. It has been stated that in many places wholemeal is dearer than white, but inquiries in the trade suggest that this is not as it should be, apart from “fancy” brown breads. As has been pointed out, the Ministry of Food, confronted with alternatives, apparently favour the introduction of “faked” white bread rather than the adoption of wholemeal. There is, however, a medium course. In this country we have come to recognise the “inevitability of gradualness,” and the medium course would meet present needs and might lead to the voluntary adoption of all that is desired.— It has been found that the admixture with fine ground wholemeal flour of about 10 per cent. of white flour makes a light coloured, very palatable, and digestible bread of good texture. Its nutritive value is very little less than that of full wholemeal bread; in fact a rather larger proportion of white flour would be permissible. The mixed flour is quite satisfactory for rolls, scones and cakes.” If an admixture of the kind suggested would overcome the prejudice against wholemeal bread and render it palatable to those people who dislike the ordinary wholemeal bread, there would seem to be a very strong case for adopting such a suggestion rather than first to remove a natural constituent of wheat and subsequently, at a cost, artificially add to the flour the constituent which has been removed in the manufacture of the flour.