Comments on the RTPI Education Commission's Report and its implications for planning education

Abstract

Introductory comment by PETER BATEY* The report of the Education Commission, published earlier this year by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), is seen by many as the most important review of planning education, qualifications and training since the Schuster Report of more than 50 years ago. In the July 2003 edition of Town Planning Review, we published a paper setting out the context for the Commission's report. That paper also summarised the main recommendations. In this edition we present a number of invited comments on the report. Three of the contributors write from an international perspective (Robin Boyle from the United States of America, Alain Motte from France and Peter Ache from Germany); a fourth contributor, Simon Pepper, takes a sideways look from his position as the head of an architecture school; and the final contribution is from Jim Claydon who worked closely with the Commission throughout its deliberations as a member of the support team based at the University of the West of England, Bristol. * Peter Batey is Lever Professor of Town and Regional Planning at the Department of Civic Design (Town and Regional Planning), University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZQ; email: pwjbatey@liv.ac.uk Comment by ROBIN BOYLE** Reading the RTPI Education Commission Report (RTPI, 2003a) from a US perspective evokes different reactions (and emotions). Writing as a planner/educator who spent the first half of his professional career in British planning education, who still retains Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) membership and a professional interest in planning education, my initial response to the RTPI Education Commission Report (RTPI, 2003a) and to the Draft RTPI Policy Statement on Initial Planning Education (RTPI, 2003b) is very positive. I read about a profession, my profession-traditionally a rigid, inflexible agent- articulately responding to a set of challenges forcing its membership to rethink the way that it educates and trains future generations of planners and how tomorrow's students will cope with the complexity of spatial planning. In a relatively brief report (49 pages of text), blissfully free of stultifying jargon, the Commission clearly presents the case for a paradigm shift in planning education. Moreover, the Commission has obviously listened with care to those offering evidence from the universities. The competitive context of higher education, organisational change within universities, the diminishing prestige of planning, the cost of planning education with its relatively low numbers of students, the multiple pressures on departments and their staff, and more, are all taken into account in the Final Report. As an educator I am most impressed by the articulation of a clear shift from instructional input to indicative learning outcomes as the driving force of the new draft education policy. Both the final Commission Report and the Draft Policy Statement offer considerable flexibility to the educators, and their institutions, to design and deliver a curriculum that reflects the learning context and the particular research interests of the departments concerned. Yet, while flexibility can be a virtue it can also be used as an excuse for lack of specificity. I see a marked difference between what is proposed for the UK and what occurs in the USA. The final Commission Report seeks initial professional education that can demonstrate breadth of knowledge, depth of knowledge and the ability to apply knowledge in practice-skills and competencies for effective delivery (RTPI, 2003a, para. 7.1). For whom? Of what? To what end? The 'making of place and the mediation of space' (RTPI, 2003a, para 4.17) is a fine phrase but substantive detail is noticeably absent from the final Commission Report and the recent Draft Policy Statement. The indicative guidance offered in the final Commission Report as to what should be covered is very elastic-'social science as an analytical framework, design and the realisation of place, economic issues relating to development, environmental challenges, and legal frameworks' (RTPI, 2003b, para 6. …