Colleges of education must expect the end of the monopoly they had enjoyed in pre-service teacher training and of the virtual monopoly in in-service, Mr James Scotland, principal of Aberdeen College of Education, told the annual meeting of the Association of Lecturers in Colleges of Education in Scotland.
In pre-service training, schools might play a bigger part - but teachers tended to undervalue theory and ask colleges to emphasise areas (practical work) which schools were better equipped to do.
* The most important educational role of primary headteachers is of at least attempting to keep abreast of the latest developments in educational theory and practice, Mr Duncan O’Hara, Stirlingshire primary adviser, told a residential conference of the council’s headteachers at Dollarbeg.
He invited them to ask what was the underlying educational theory that they were committed to. Mr O’Hara‘s answer was the Primary Memorandum: “Education should have as its aim the all-round development of the child.”
* The Educational Institute of Scotland have changed their minds about the need for a single school leaving date. Instead they want children to be allowed to leave as soon as they reach 16.
Compulsory measures are to be avoided wherever possible, say the institute, but there are also moral, educational and practical reasons for freeing school leavers from the compulsion of fixed leaving dates. The moral argument is that “the method of determining when pupils leave by reference to fixed dates is repugnant to one’s sense of natural justice.”
* Art teachers are undervalued. Here they are practising successfully what they preach, exposing their souls, and selling them. This enhances the value of their teaching, stimulates self-analysis and earns respect all round.
TES SCOTLAND, MAY 12, 1972
