Teddy Taylor has resigned as Scottish Office under-secretary responsible for education and health. His anti-Common Market views had made his continuing membership of Edward Heath’s Government untenable.
The TES Scotland took the editorial line that “It seems unlikely his resignation will affect Scottish education much, partly because he cannot be said to have contributed much.” But at least he had been educated in Scotland which is more than could be said for most Tory MPs, the leader continued, although the result was to leave him “so content with things as he had known them that he seemed little inclined to be either outward or forward looking”.
Mr Taylor’s last act as education minister was to defend the governors of Craigie College of Education for failing to renew a lecturer’s temporary contract.
* Gordon Campbell, the Secretary of State for Scotland, has rejected a petition from Scottish teachers objecting to the Government’s decision to raise the school leaving age to 16 in 1972. Mr Campbell said he would not be justified in postponing yet again an important educational advance on which a decision was first reached in 1964.
He accepted that the resources were not ideally what might be wished for but added that “the shortfall should not be such as seriously to impair the advantages that can be expected from the raising of the age.”
* The Court of Session in Edinburgh has given formal effect to the House of Lords decision quashing the dismissal of Jack Malloch by Aberdeen Corporation over his refusal to register with the General Teaching Council. The court also awarded Mr Malloch his expenses in full.
It was now up to the Aberdeen authorities to decide whether his continued employment with the council was unlawful.
TES Scotland, July 30, 1971
