The World of Education; #8 One Man's View of Polytechnic and #9 Management Education in Britain

The world of education. And in the studios of the BBC in London this is Andrew Sackey. This week one man's view of the modern Polytechnic. The Polytechnic system came about simply because the university has were not able to fill a crucial social role. That's all thought educating people who were mainly concerned with the application of education and not merely understanding and sitting on their backsides. Dr George Burrows and principal of the North East London Polytechnic one of the largest in the United Kingdom. In Britain at the moment there's a great interest in the development of technological education particularly at the higher levels now because of these developments the whole meaning of the word Polytechnic is changing. It used to stand for a sort of Mechanics Institute operated either by a charity or by a local authority and providing vocational skills for people who couldn't afford higher education. All of that has now

changed. Today a full time course at a polytechnic is seen as a valid alternative to a university course. A politics like today means a large educational institution concerned with a whole range of work. For example we have faculties of Allston design arts and languages. Business start is environmental studies engineering human sciences and sciences as such. Of course the Polytechnic system at the moment has emerged from the grouping together of a number of colleges which were typically colleges of technology. Polytechnics in the form A séance colleges of OC colleges of Commerce as it were in the formal sense these were all the thorough the education system colleges as it was called at the time and they generally evolved from the need to train Crofts minute there's levels.

And as the load came on them the pressure came on them to do ha ha work. What happened was that throughout the further education system too many colleges in the view of the Department of Education and Science side were doing high level work and they decided in 1965 in a white paper that these high level courses should be concentrated in a limited number of institutions 30 in fact to bring together two and threes of these colleges and say we will concentrate this work. Will you organize yourself to do mainly but not this high level work. The north east Polytechnic was formed by grouping together two former colleges of technology West Ham and barking and joining them with the Waltham Forest Technical College. Now how far is it in the manual skills necessary to modern technology.

There are other colleges in Great Britain which are responsible for doing this. For example in this Polytechnic we work very closely with several others in the locality Westham College of Further Education. East Ham technical college are two examples who have surgeons and Consols of students carrying out work at their Scrafton technician levels. So what role does the modern Polytechnic play. The relation of the Polytechnic really must be looked at first towards industry and secondly to the individual. A phrase that I sometimes use is the Polytechnic is concerned with the education of apprentice industrialists whereas the universities I think are quite properly concerned with the education of Apprentice. Educational lists and academics The difference is crucial. The universities quite properly are concerned with the generation on the transmission

of knowledge for its own sake. The polytechnics I think are concerned with the way in which this knowledge will be applied in industry. But don't think that this simply means fitting round pegs of students into the unsympathetic square holes of industry. There's far more to it than that. The choice if it is to be effective to either the student or to industry has to be a two sided matter. Both parties have to agree that this is what happens has to be done for the individual and for the benefit of the firm in future. Let me give you a specific example. You might say that accountancy is something that is very applied but in accountancy you can teach it either as an abstract branch of economics. Or you can teach it as a problem solving technique which an

apprentice accountant has to learn to apply because in real life later on in the firm he will be confronting situations where he has to make use of the various types of knowledge that he has. The result a way in which I think the polytechnics indeed lead the universities for example polytechnics were the first to offer degree courses in business studies in this country. They were the first to offer courses in computing. They were leaders in many developments in sandwich courses although naturally some of their antecedents which eventually became technological universities also did that at roughly the same time. Over the last few months there's been a lot of discussion about whether the Polytechnic should offer a general course of study involving a number of subjects or whether they should take a specific vocational approach from the beginning. I don't think that this is a real dichotomy. I believe that it is essential

for polytechnics to order a broad span of courses and I must say that the present system of course approvals under which the polytechnics operate does not help us in this regard. We are hoping however that some enlightened moves in the Department of Education and Science will enable us to go away from the present somewhat rigid definition of courses on a single subject basis to something that we think is far better and that is they setting up a network of courses within which under proper guidance a student can move. Now in this movement he will of course go to that particular vocational set of subjects that in is it is of interest to him. We are now be a little more specific DR-DOS and what are the courses offered for example here at your politic. Well we've got something like a hundred and sixty courses in the Polytechnic and I don't suppose that you want me to go through them all. But in each of the 25 departments what we are trying to do and for the most part are well on the way

to accomplishing all to have first of all a full time degree or sandwich degree that is a degree with study interspersed with work in either industry or commerce a part time degree and a master's degree. These apply in the fields of Applied Biology biological science chemistry mathematics physics chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering production engineering systems engineering architecture civil engineering surveying business studies finance and economics computing. In arts and languages in education in psychology in social science we also run in the department of Art and Design diploma courses in those subjects but these I've said all the degree courses we regard these in it as an important part of our work.

But by no means the only part in each department it is our policy to offer. First of all courses at below degree level which require for entry not the degree standard of two or more A-levels but one A-level in an appropriate subject plus evidence of study in an ABA. We also offer part time courses. Typically the higher national certificate who is the typical student at a modern politic example what sort of exams is he working towards and what range of policy cations can be obtained at the North East London politic. We do not believe that our function is complete. If we deal only with one particular age group with one particular level of academic achievement at that particular point in age nor with one set type of an qualification that we don't regard our job as complete if we deal only with the students in the general age range from let us say 18 to 25. We offer

many many courses which are short courses and these are for people in industry in commerce for updating and retraining. Let me explain that updating means when a particular new discovery or new technique is available we will make this known to whoever is interested. Maybe new techniques of mathematics or maybe new techniques of manufacture both of which we would regard equally valid for exposition but also has an element of retraining because as industry changes under the impact of technology people do need to be retrained in various ways. And this again at the appropriate levels we deal with. The polytechnics are interested in what they called the problem solving aspects of education. They feel that in order to solve the problem you first need to define the situation in which the problem poses itself. Supposing you were given a particular component in metal and said

set up a plot to make these. This is a situation you all faced with a component or series of components and you were told to make them. You then have to go about defining the problem. You have to ask in what quantity of these made how accurately are they to be made. How long are they supposed to last. What kind of materials are likely to be available cheaply and easily. To do this it is only when these questions have been answered and the problem has been more clearly define it you can go about designing the layout of the machinery the specifying the machinery itself or constructing machinery to make the component. It has been argued that because the new polytechnics performed by grouping together a number of colleges sometimes colleges quite far apart. So there is a sort of loss of geographical identity. The student might feel that there is no particular center with which he can identify. Would you central environment work better in the long

run. For every advantage there is of ease of internal cohesion and internal communication. There is a corresponding disadvantage in terms of contact with the community and communication with the community. Let me be quite specific we have precincts at Waltham Forest and Bach. In fact these are 12 miles apart in a very very densely populated area and students who can go to Waltham Forest for one of these higher national certificate courses I mentioned earlier cannot easily get to barking and thus by having courses available in more than one place. We make communication and contact with the people who live in these places that much easier. And finally how has the amalgamation of three separate colleges each of which had previously functioned in its own right worked out in practice. Is the North East London Polytechnic merely a compromise the result of a decision by

government to spend less by centralizing. I can only see this from a very narrow point of view and all I can say is of the amalgamation of the three colleges the foremost Polytechnic has proceeded I think quite well. We have had for example three departments of mechanical engineering. Three of electrical engineering. Three to three departments of mathematics and so on. All of these are now fused into single departments and I think the staff have learned that they have more in common than they had before when shall we say there was a certain amount of Kordell competition between them. And certainly of course as time goes by the memory of what was X years ago is not going to matter at all. Looking to the future with Dr George Bruce and principal of the North East London Polytechnic and in the studios of the BBC in London this is Andrew Saturday. This was the world of education.

This programme was distributed by National Public Radio. The world of education and in the studios of the BBC in London. This is Peter HOBDAY this week we're going to look at management education in Britain compared with the Americans who started back in 1881 the British were fairly late in the field by the end of the 1950s less than 10 universities provided any sort of formal business education. But suddenly the climate changed. There were reports and pressure groups and money was raised in fact five million pounds came from industry itself and by 1965 two major postgraduate management schools have been established one in London the capital and the other in Manchester in the north. Others proliferated until today there are 40 universities or other institutions offering business management courses at all levels. Between them

they've produced about 2000 business graduates of one category or another. But management education in Britain is a provocative subject. Reporters followed reports in the last few weeks for example. Two more have been published. One from the business graduates Association found that industry was by and large satisfied with what it was getting in the way of executive material from the schools the other from the Council of industry for management education said that although the schools were not doing badly they could do a lot better. Well with me in the studio I have Dr. Arthur principal of the London Business School and Sir David Katz a back administrative director of business graduates Association doctoral if I could come to you first. Could we just establish exactly what we mean by management education what is it. A very interesting question Peter in fact both words management and education are susceptible of an almost infinite number of definitions by management I think that most people in the

field mean the set of men who are responsible in any institution for directing that institution towards the achievement of its goals. Now that's a very general definition. It involves directing people it involves me decision about things but it applies over a very wide field not only business but the managements of hospitals and governments and so on. Education really I think for our purposes means providing men who are or who intend to become members of management teams with the basic systems of reasoning by which they can arrive at the best solutions to their problems. And as much insight as possible into the practice and perfection of practice which experience teaches one has to begin by realizing that

management education applies to a remarkably broad spectrum of student. In our case all the way from the post graduate student at age 24 25 who has taken a first degree in any subject and who is with us for two years two very senior managers in their fifties who are probably exercising top executive responsibilities and who are with us only for six weeks now. With the latter one would not hope to teach them management by definition their managers already. One tries to acquaint them with techniques and new ways of. Thinking about their own established professions with the younger man one is trying both to give them ways of thinking about business plans and measure techniques which they can use in their early employment.

But if you are getting all sorts of students with all sorts of ages and has all sorts of stages of their career where do you think city would cloud about the main emphasis should be should it be directly on the man who has just graduated or the woman for that matter. Or should one go for what a lot of people called the Post experience cause Give the man a little experience in an industry first and then so to speak send him back to school. Well I think there's no doubt that if he has some experience before he goes to business school the course he takes there will mean much more to him. You'll be able to contribute much more to it and you have to remember that part of this process is the exchange of knowledge between the students and when he comes out. They're much easier to assimilate in either end of the company left or into some new field. But I think most of the argument on this having arises out of the meaning of the word teach and certainly in this country it's only coming now to be accepted that there is a body of knowledge which can be imparted in a teaching environment.

Which sort of student does the teacher prefer Does he prefer the man who's had three or four years experience. Is that an easier student so to speak to impart knowledge. We're talking about the younger men here and on the whole I agree with David on this but it's something on which we decline to establish a rule it's really a question of maturity of one's talking in the main about managing people. And this is a function of maturity and it's difficult if not impossible to talk to an immature man about this. And we find lots of examples of men who come directly from their first degree who for one reason or another are amply mature human beings and we find lots of people who have had two or three or five years of business experience who haven't achieved maturity so for that reason we don't like to make a rule about it. But again given this range of students this range of subjects the pressure all on the teacher must be immense. What is it that makes a good management teacher.

I think ideally he should be a combination of three things. He should be a man who is able to communicate. Secondly he must be a man who commands the subject matter that he's going to teach beyond challenge. And finally he should have a background of experience in the application of his knowledge in management because after all we're talking about education for professionals people who are going to practice what they're being taught. Now the difficulty comes because humans who combine all three attributes are comparatively rare. And if I had to choose between knowers I would want first and foremost the man who combines teaching ability with the mastery of a subject. The end of all our work and in developing faculty is if necessary to add the third attribute that is the experience of business

to the first two. And we tried to do that either by sending the man out on internships to work in industry or by opening up for them. Lots of opportunities for research and consultancy in which they will gain first hand and continuing experience with business problems. So did you want the feedback you got from the members of your association. Awful they're the ones that have been US 1 bit of feedback. Is that teaching star so very young even now. It seems to me this is perfectly inevitable in a country which doesn't subsidize the training of teachers of management. We have an acute shortage in the UK of every kind of management teacher of high quality. The result is we have to make do with the best people we can get. If a mayor I would like to take up something which is commonly but which is open to question that the customer for management education is industry and this is very often assumed

in criticisms of management education to the effect that the schools are not producing what industry wants. The fact is that at least as important customers of management education are the students themselves students to have rights and have very sound judgment as to what they want. Very often we find in post experience courses that is those courses where the men are coming in their 30s and 40s after a long business experience. They're sent by companies who have a certain view as to what the man should obtain from the course and the very men they send have quite different it is just what they hope to obtain from the course so that the business school anyone in management education is trained to serve at least two customers and at the same time trying to satisfy its own educational objectives and in some

sense make a judgement as to what sort of long term teaching is best adapted to the interests of the country. It's a very difficult balancing question and I don't think it's helped at heart by assuming that the immediate judgment of industry as customers is necessarily right or the only one to be considered. But at the same time I mean do you think that the situation that one finds in management education in this country is a product of the fact that it's so relatively new. You were talking about all these different questions this balancing trick which the management educationist has to do. Is it because it's only six or seven years old today if at all you think yes this is the reason. And of course it must inevitably take more than six or seven years to get any clear idea what really are the needs of industry. The industrial scene in this country is not equivalent to the scene anywhere else. And this process will take a generation I would think.

But is it different in management education any education and it has to take account of the world outside and he's often accused whatever his subject that he doesn't take account of is enough. This is just it's not peculiar. Presumably to management education this particular situation Well we certainly are not peculiar to this country I disagree with her. There's as much argument about management education in the United States where as you say it's been in existence for an idea years really as there is here the essence of the problem is that you are talking about professional education in an occupation where there are no professional standards. This means almost by definition that many of the participants will not have enjoyed the form of education and will fire and criticize of all aspects of it. I think that in the United States it's become part of the scene and so proportionately the

criticisms diminish but I think we just have to learn to live with us for quite a long time. But is it possibly anything to do with the fact that as you were saying there's a shortage of teachers and equally Is it too easy to become a business student. I mean are there a number of places could could I join tomorrow for example they would cut it back from from your point of view it was. Well the average number of competitors for each place at the best of the schools is I think between 5 and 10. I'm likely to get more. The selection process gets bent by money. Some schools have to accept people who they regard as suitable but not a suitable as others when they have to reject because the others just can't afford to come. I don't know how you get over this problem and you get over it doctor. Well I I think in our case we have so many applicants that we don't have to really take your own case it would be except Mr Peter Hobday.

Well if he sold a very long application form and did a test which everyone in the world and he had a very high score and if he passed a personal interview and was regarded as mature then we'd be very happy to have you but you would have one chance of ten of achieving that so the answer to your question is it is not easy to become a student. But a final question to you both. Do you think that Britain has done relatively well in the short time in which management education has been established to be private. Yes I do it's a healthy child and by comparison with our continental competitors it's that kindergarten whereas the competitors still in the cradle. Doctor I think that's true I think that if you can sell to the leaders in this field in the United States they would regard what has been achieved in England in six or seven years as almost miraculous we've got a long way to go but I think we have really made a commendable start. And with that encouraging pats on the back for Britains management schools this is

a whole day in the studios of the BBC in London. This was the world of education. This program was distributed by National Public Radio.