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Peppy Barlow reviews student opinion in the municipal and new universities.

Peppy Barlow considers agricultural education and training.

Peppy Barlow, herself a casualty of girls' education, returns to her home area to see what advances have been made in the past ten years.

Are borstals prisons or schools? Peppy Barlow review their progress to date

The colleges of education have been transformed, some of them out of all recognition, if numbers alone are indicative. Ten years ago only three training colleges in England and Wales had over 500 students. Now, out of a total of 161, about 14 have upward of 1000 and we are rapidly reaching a situation in which 750 places will be a minimum for respectable survival. The small, residential establishments for 100–200 students of the pre‐Robbins/Crosland era, have been thrown bang into the sixties, with responsibilities that would be condusive to schizophrenia in the most stable institutions. For not only do they have to cope with large numbers of restless students, many beyond permanent supervision off‐campus, and mix men with their women. They must also develop a totally different role in the education system.

Peppy Barlow reports on the progress of industrial training in Northern Ireland where the problems of civil disorder are accentuated by an unemployment rate of 8·9 per cent, the highest of any region in the United Kingdom.

Peppy Barlow looks at further education in Ireland where at long last there is an alternative to university.

The technical colleges in Northern Ireland are finding an opportunity to develop in the area between school level‐work (with which many of them were until recently involved) and advanced courses.

Audio‐visual aids begin, as all good followers of Edward Short will tell you, with talk, chalk and blackboard; and should never be allowed to end in a mass of blurting, blinking machinery. Taking in an array of sound arguments for not dehumanizing education, the traditional teacher attitude is, at base, the reflex of a profession bewildered by the mechanical tools which the commercial world seems determined to foist upon it. Machines often demand quite simple manipulatory skills for which teachers aren't trained, but more pertinently they suggest ordered, efficient teaching methods — a combination which leads to fewer, better trained teachers. It is not the A/V aids, however, which are the crux of the matter — the advantages of providing a more varied learning environment are largely accepted.

Like it or not — the Industrial Training Boards are here to stay and growing fast. To date there are 29 (coming up 30 with the ‘pending’ Hairdressing and Beauty Culture ITB), ranging down from the mighty Engineering ITB with a levy yield of £85 million (1968/9) and influence over the fate of three million workers, to happy little outfits like the Water Supply ITB with a mere 44 000, and the romantic sounding Knitting, Lace and Net ITB which proves, in fact, to be quite a substantial organization involving 1400 establishments, 154 700 employees and a one per cent payrole levy amounting to over a million. Between them they levy £130 million, grant £120 million, spend around £4 million on administration and the remainder on centrally directed training services for their specific industries — including research.