Future of Technical Colleges

Abstract

THE letter by Messrs. Barrer and Andrews1 from the Technical College, Bradford, will surely be as great and as distressing a surprise to many as it has been to me. The admirable work of technical colleges plays so great a part in the nation's welfare one would indeed hope they would stand proudly upright on their own feet rather than dissipate energies in screw-jacking themselves painfully to some self-determined level they choose to regard as of “university rank and status”. Cannot they take heart and be persuaded to see themselves as others see them? When I was with good colleagues during the War of 1914-18, in the Manchester College of Technology, we found it good and sufficient to be of a great institution. Many close friends who have worked or do work in technical colleges tell me, however, that an undue amount of energy is expended in preparing a very small nucleus of students for external degrees of a university, and thereby is diminished the potential for the dominant duties which the technical college has to perform: if this be so, it is a great pity. Therefore I was extremely glad to see Sir Lawrence Bragg's Committee of the Institute of Physics recommended that “it should not be a primary function of a technical college to educate students for External University Degrees”.