Rise in number of social workers
- The number of students who qualified as social workers in 1971 was 168, 50 per cent more than in 1970, says a report. The total number of students in training was 422. The number of fieldwork staff rose from 1,286 to 1,433, an increase of 12 per cent. One of the most important developments was the introduction of the system of children’s hearings.
Primary art neglected
- The treatment of art in some primary schools is criticised by Mr James Ramage, arts and craft supervisor in Perth and Kinross. He says instruction in all secondary schools is in a very healthy condition. But many primary children “develop no artistic skills whatsoever”, while in upper primary some teachers “demand neatness so vigorously that their pupils are afraid to experiment”.
Never too late to learn
- Editorial comment: The language of adult education is both ambitious and vague. At the weekend conference the phrases were oft-repeated - education permanente, continuous education and life-long education. How do these differ from or overlap with retraining, in-service training, liberal leisure studies? Are they all to be administered in roughly similar institutions, by roughly similar educationists who have had roughly the same kind of training?
Thalidomide compensation
- When the parents of a thalidomide child were paid compensation, the neighbours reacted as if they had won the pools. Envy was so great that the family was, for a while, ostracised. This story illustrates one of the main problems in educating thalidomide children. The first is psychological: adjusting to physical deformity and gaining acceptance by other people. The second is the sheer technical difficulty of keeping abreast of normal children.
Hours and holiday shake-up
- The dam was broken when France’s Ministry of Education let it be known that it was considering abolishing the Thursday holiday; children now have Wednesday off instead. That so radical a change in the sacred and secular habits of French families could be carried out without any difficulty has led the ministry to look at other aspects of the “scholastic rhythm”.
