Career structures and their relation to cour
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Career structures and their relation to course provision
C. D. Legge, University of Manchester
1. Definitions
Any meaningful discussion of career structures requires some agreement about the definition of the ‘adult education’ in which full-time ‘adult educator’ work. There are, of course, many possibilities, and many arguments have raged over the meanings of ‘adult’ and ‘education’, and over the supposed divisions between ‘higher education’, ‘technical education’, ‘youth education’, ‘further education’, etc. In Manchester we do not find these arguments and divisions particularly helpful, and we have taken ‘adult education’ to mean the whole range of education for adults from school leaving age onwards.
With this definition, adult educators therefore include
a)all teachers in colleges of education, universities, polytechnics, colleges of further education, technical college, colleges with specialist subject areas, e.g. agriculture, commerce, building, etc. As well as those in the WEA and Extra-Mural Departments and in residential adult colleges;
b)all organisers and administrators employed by local education authorities for educational work with adults, i.e. those with titles such as Area Principal for Further Education, Area Organiser, Further Education Officers, Further Education/Adult Education Centre Head, as well as those employed by the responsible bodies and by other voluntary independent agencies, with titles such as Organiser, Administrative Officers Education Officer, Director, Section Education Officer (Co-operative Union) etc.
c)those concerned with adult educational work in broadcasting, public libraries, H.M. Forces, health services etc.
d)training officers in industry and others with planning or administrative responsibility for industrial training;
e)those engaged in community and neighbourhood workforce have education and communication as their major objectives and who use appropriate adult educational techniques, perhaps of a very informal kind. Community development is seen as essentially an educational process, seeking to bring changes in people’s skills and knowledge and in their attitudes and ideas.
If universities are to be concerned with the training/ education of all these types of adult educators, they must have staff with knowledge and experience in the areas indicated as well as a thorough knowledge of the content of adult education as an academic discipline.
2. Present Trends
a) For the past twenty years it has been clear that the career prospects of adult educators are in the process of extremely rapid change, that as full-time posts have multiplied so people have moved from one type of post to another, and that this process is likely to go on. To quote examples from Manchester students, a Cumberland Further Education tutor becomes an Administrative Assistant for Further Education and then Principal of a College of Further Education. Or an WEA tutor organiser becomes an LEA area organiser. Or a par-time teacher of adults becomes a full-time teacher in a technical college and then a lecturer and senior lecturer in a college of education. RAF and army education officers become LEA Organisers or Heads of adult education/further education centres. Lecturers in colleges of further education become industrial trainers; prison education officers become heads of centres; youth service workers become Area Principals etc. etc.
This kind of career developments makes nonsense of any desire to segregate vocational and non-vocational, or to put certain types of educational work with adults into special closed compartments. This kind of loose, flexible ‘structure’ is probably more suited to the modern world, or at least to the urban industrialised section of it, than a neat, clear-cut hierarchical and fixed structure. In a rapidly changing situation many occupations tend to become out of date or in need of radical modification and the profession of the adult educator is no exception. In the future it seems likely that adult educators can expect some types of post to become out of date and hence that they will need to move from one area to another several times during a working lifetime. If this is true, it has important implications for the type of course provided.
b) The size of the post-war increase in the number of full-time appointments is not always easy to determine but may be indicated by the following:
Full-time teachers in further education (major establishments and evening institutes)[1]
1946-47 / 4,7301963 / 37,000
1972 / 60,000 / (estimated)
We can compare the figures given in January 1972 in Trends in Education (DES) No. 25:
Number of teachers in / 1950 / 1960 / 1970Further Education establishments / 7,330 / 19,640 / 49,590
Colleges of Education / 2,503 / 2,912 / 10,671
The National Institute of Adult Education in November 1971 provided the following figures for the last ten years:
1962 / 1970Full-time field staff in adult education / 150 / 500
Full-time field staff in community centres / 100 / 200
Full-time field staff in joint appointments / 200 / 400
Other full-time teachers or administrators in adult education / ? / 600
The number of extra-mural staff tutors is shown in the UCAE reports as:
1947-48161
1957-58270
1967-68357
1969-70418
These figures indicate clearly the kind of explosion in the number of full-time appointments but are not of course comprehensive: accurate figures for the whole field seen extraordinarily difficult to obtain.
c) The demand for training: the first LEA advertisement suggesting that the possession of a Diploma in Adult Education was desirable seems to have appeared in 1964, but it has now become a usual, though not obligatory, requirement for several types of post. Recent details for a post as ‘Principal for Adult Education’ in Kent stated that relevant academic qualifications, such as the Diploma in Adult Education, or a University Degree, would be an advantage”. The currency value of a qualification in adult education depends, of course, on the calibre of those who possess it and upon its image in the eyes of appointing agencies. A good deal of development is still needed and it is important not to devalue the currency by poor selection, but it would appear that we have made some progress since the 1950s when the whole operation was often regarded as suspect, if not impossible.
Two interesting -types of demand in recent years have been:
(i) a fairly persistent series off requests for initial training from young new graduates as well as from newly graduated mature students. These often wish to teach but to teach adults rather than children. In the mid 1960’s a few of these were accepted experimentally for the Manchester Diplomas with some modifications of the course. The results were- mixed but some of the young graduates then accepted have made a success of their careers in adult education. Since then the pressure of numbers of applicants as well as policy decisions have tended to exclude them.
(ii) a sharply increasing request for higher degrees in adult education. Mainly this comes from those, who having taken an advanced diplomas want to continue their studies in a master’s or doctorate programme. In Manchester although the first M.Ed. in adult education was awarded in 1951, the number of M.Ed. or Ph.D. candidates each year remained in single figures until the mid 1960s . Since then the position is as follow:
Full-time / Part-time / Total1966-67 / 5 / 6 / 11
1967-68 / 4 / 10 / 14
1968-69 / 0 / 11 / 11
1969-70 / 6 / 15 / 21
1970-71 / 6 / 19 / 25
1971-72 / 13 / 35 / 48
(Probable) / 1972-73 / 70
There seems every indication that the number of applicants will continue to rise, especially with the provision of a ‘taught’ M.Ed. which can be taken after examination and the presentation of a 20,000 word dissertation (Method I) instead of the up-to-now more usual research thesis (Method II).
3. Course Provision
Whatever the ultimate results of the James Report, it is clear that there is already an extremely large need for training/education courses for adult educators and that this is unlikely to diminish. The demand for courses could also rise steeply if secondment becomes easier.
Those concerned with university participation in this training must therefore consider the following questions:
a) Induction and Initial Training
Should universities be concerned with this or should they leave it to other bodies such as the colleges of education, colleges of further education or possibly special institutions set up for this purpose?
It can be argued that in the fairly near future the major part of education should be centred on the adult rather than the child sector and that this will require a much more extensive provision of initial training for teachers of adults. Whether this is so or not, the present increase in the number of teachers in further/adult education suggests that we should plan to provide initial training for them on the same terms as those for teachers of children. Many may enter the profession at a relatively late age (coming in from industry, etc.) but this is not new: at the present time one-fifth of those in colleges of education are mature entrants.
The provision could be of many kinds, possibly a post-graduate year for specialist graduates, or, if the James Report is adopted, adult education might be component option in the Diploma in Higher Education and the central study in the ‘second cycle’ leading to a BA (Education) or perhaps a BA (Adult Education). Or it could mean the development of a first degree in adult education (with or without honours) taken after the normal three year course. Adult education would seem to be at least as respectable an academic study as law or medicine.
Alternatively in-service courses could be arranged for those newly recruited to full-time posts in adult education, i.e. ‘initial training’ soon after employment as an essential part of the early years in a post. There could be many variant forms of day release, block release or sandwich courses.
How far universities wish to enter -this area may well depend upon their general answer to the proposals of the James Report and to the financial provision made to would-be candidates.
b) Advanced Courses
Should universities concentrate upon this type of post experience provision and upon research? Should universities regard themselves more as ‘trainers of trainers’, concentrating upon the more senior people in the ‘career structure’?
It seems obvious that universities cannot hope to cope with the training of part-time teachers of adults. The National Institute of Adult Education estimated a total of 85,300 part-time teachers in the LEA sector only and the training of these must be largely the responsibility of full-time members of their staff. It can also be argued that universities should be concerned more with the education of the staff of colleges of education than with their normal students, even if these become more teachers of adults than teachers of children.
If there is to be more emphasis on the desirability of the continuing education of educators throughout their careers, as the James Report suggests, universities should not stand apart. The main arguments in fact concern the types of courses and the tyres of award. Perhaps the major contributions the universities ought to make lie in the supply of more theoretical knowledge and research evidence to help adult educators gain a broad basis of understanding, and in the arrangement of suitable opportunities for further study, especially at those points in an adult educators’ career when he is changing his type of post.
The following notes from two of my colleagues amplify the picture in Manchester.
Note on the Manchester diploma in adult education and career promotion in adult education
W.J.A. Harris, University of Manchester
The Diploma in Adult Education from 1961 onwards was at first the only diploma in the department although there was an optional paper in community development, primarily nor overseas work. Since 1965 a separate Diploma in Community Development has been offered. The table which follows illustrates how the Diploma in Adult Education course has changed from being mainly overseas and full-time to one with a preponderance of United Kingdom candidates and as many United Kingdom part-time as full-time students.
Diploma in Adult Education, Manchester
Overseas / United Kingdom / Total1961-62 / 10 / 3 / 13
1962-63 / 19 / 9 (2 part-time) / 28 (2 part-time)
1963-64 / 19 / 8 (3 part-time) / 27 (3 part-time)
1964-65 / 17 / 12 (3 part-time) / 29 (3 part-time)
Separation of Community / Development
1965-66 / 8 / 22 (8 part-time) / 30 (8 part-time)
1966-67 / 9 / 22 (11 part-time) / 31 (11 part-time)
1967-68 / 7 / 18 (10 part-time) / 25 (10 part-time)
1968-69 / 11 / 24 (12 part-time) / 35 (12 part-time)
1969-70 / 7 / 23 (12 part-time) / 30 (12 part-time)
1970-71 / 7 / 28 (14 part-time) / 35 (14 part-time)
1971-72 / 6 / 25 (15 part-time) / 31 (15 part-time)
One of our diploma students wrote her dissertation in 1970 on career development among our United Kingdom diploma holders. Of the candidates she studied, she noted that from 1961 to 1970 55% had been graduates, 31% non-graduates but teacher qualified and 13% in possession of other qualifications. She was faced in her study by the immense range of occupations (from LEA Centre administration to college lecturing to librarianship to tutor-organising) which can be defined as being within the ‘education of adults’, and by the fact that almost a11 our candidates are already involved in educational activities from which they have had a wide variety of qualifications and experience or none at all.
The candidates have come from a wide variety of posts in ‘adult education’, although the more traditional adult educational careers such as educational centre wardens, LEA area organisers and part-time and full-time ‘lecturers’ have been well represented. Their ages have ranged from 21 to 60, with the largest proportion between 35 and 45 and also (particularly in 1965-67) with a number of 21 to 25 year olds (initial trainees in adult education, though with evidence of aptitude in this field.) The latter have not been accepted here since 1968 with only one or two special exceptions.
Almost all have found employment in adult education after ‘qualifying’ or have returned to their former posts. Many have changed their form of adult education work from lecturing to organising or from college work to educational centres and community work. A number of the older graduates had a background as ‘mature students’ at adult colleges and universities. ‘Career development’ could be (1) along conventional lines (e.g. upgrading from part-time lecturer to centre principal) or (2) by change of the sphere of educational activities or (3) by complete change of occupation. The former degree graduates have followed mainly the second line of development but some took the first. The teacher-trained have followed the first, i.e. conventional lines. The non-graduate, non-teachers have most often made a complete change of occupation, into WEA. tutor-organising or centre wardenship, etc. The diploma year has in many cases broadened their views on adult educational work and on society in general, as many of them have testified.
To quote from the dissertation, the ‘career patterns reflect the diversity of the adult education field and no specific line of career development was clearly recognisable’. As far as the United Kingdom is concerned the diploma holders from this department are not to be found in college lecturing (university, polytechnic, Extra-Mural, College of Education, FE College, Co-operative College), in the WEA, the Forces, AE centres and Community Colleges and ITV and in the Church, industry and other spheres e.g. youth work, blind education, prison work and LEA Area Advisers.
As far as the overseas students are concerned, or the UK students who went to work overseas, the range in responsibility and in duties is in many respects wider. In the developing and changing situations in many of the countries represented in our courses this is not surprising. A larger proportion are all senior administrative and policy making situations. Many overseas students leave us determined to make major changes in AE structures in their own countries. Many will often receive routine promotions on return to their posts and perhaps in some position to achieve something of this wish. It is however probably a mistake to attribute anything of such career promotion to the positive virtues of any particular diploma training received in this country. Any beneficial influence which a UK diploma such as this can have overseas will depend more on careful selection overseas than on the formal content of a diploma syllabus.
Note on career opportunities in community development
R. Armstrong, University of Manchester
Recruitment
The Manchester Diploma in Community Development has to be seen as a two stream course, intended both for those who will work in developing countries (mainly overseas nationals) and for home based students. Until recently the majority of students were from overseas though a new trend towards home dominance has emerged. The figures below illustrate the change.
Number of students attending Diploma in Community Development course
Year / Overseas oriented / UK oriented / Total1967-68 / 19 / 2 / 21
1968-69 / 16 / 2 / 18
1969-70 / 14 / 5 / 19
1970-71 / 17 / 7 / 24
1971-72 / 12 / 16 / 28
The growth in the numbers from the United Kingdom requiring a Community Development course has also been accompanied by an increase in financial grants by government, local authorities and other organisations.
Government / Local Authority / Other / Private1969-70 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2
1970-71 / 3 / 3 / 1 / -
1971-72 / 5 / 5 / 2 / 4
This reflects an increasing demand for training in the field of Community Work and has a bearing on the jobs that are sought after completing the course.
Career Opportunities
Past students have applied for and obtained posts in the following fields:
- Community Development Officers (Local Authority)
- Community Development Officers (Special Projects)
- Youth and Community Work (Local Authority)
- Councils of Social Service
- Community Relations Officer
- Social Development Officer (New Towns)
- Community Association Worker
- Neighbourhood Workers
- Volunteer Worker
- Community Workers (Voluntary Organisations)
- Warden of Community Centre
It is envisaged that the above categories will offer increased opportunities and further areas will open up for which a Community Work Training will be regarded as a suitable qualification, e.g.
(i) Counselling Advice in Youth and Community Work.
(ii) Liaison Officers - between neighbourhood and LA and Voluntary Organisations.
(iii) Training Officers - LA and Councils of Social Service.
(iv) Housing Officers - LA
(v) Academic appointments - Youth and Community Work, Polytechnics, etc.
[1]See Cantor, L. and Roberts, I.F. Further Education in England and Wales, 1969; p. 2