IN forty years, if our statesmanship is foolproof, we shall have an Imperial system of education with free exchange of teachers of all grades (including the University grade). In forty years the local authorities should be working with the local universities and the local education areas should have a complete system of education, including postgraduate research, with the whole of national education bound together under a Board of Education playing the part of the captain of the ship!

50 years ago September 5, 1952

The new BBC further education programmes will be listened to with keen interest by those who give thought to the running of modern democratic States. If they are succesful, they will not sound more educational than many other programmes on air. Their educational aim, however, is important.

In fact, if the BBC is interesting at all, it is because in the broadest sense it is an educational institution. It shares the responsibility with the Press, the film and the other organs of communication.

25 years ago September 9, 1977

Amid the drama of a prime ministerial tour de force and low comedy at the expense of Mr Jack Jones’s draymen, education and training may not have been uppermost in TUC delegates’ minds this week at Blackpool. But unemployment, and particularly the shocking figure of more than 200,000 jobless school-leavers, was in the background to every discussion, and the congress duly repeated their demands for mandatory educational maintenance allowances, day release and a full FE programme to complement Holland.

Mr John Gray, president of the National Union of Teachers, spelled out what could happen if 16-year-olds get pound;18 a week for a Holland place, but at most a pound or two a week if they stay at school.