HIGHER TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION

HL Deb 01 February 1951 vol 170 cc152-200

4.57 p.m

VISCOUNT CALDECOTE rose to call attention to the report of the National Advisory Council on Education for Industry and Commerce on The Future Development of Higher Technological Education; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, there has been so much discussion on the subject of technological education that I hesitated greatly before putting down this Motion. But the matter is of such importance, there is such widespread disagreement with the proposals put forward in the Report, and the need for co-operation is so vital that I felt it was worth while putting down this Motion so that we should be able to discuss it in your Lordships' House. There is no disagreement on the importance of securing the fullest possible application of science to industry. In fact, in our present circumstances the urgency of that can hardly be exaggerated. But the danger I see in these proposals is that they appear to offer a quick and dramatic solution of the difficulties. The danger is that such proposals will do more harm than good. In the past we have evolved this unique system of technical education—I use the word "technical" in the broadest sense—by a process of slow and steady evolution. Universities, technical colleges, industry, the Ministry of Education and professional institutions have all done their share. There has been a very successful co-operation in such matters as certificates and diplomas. And there has been the London external degree which has helped colleges not only in this country but abroad to raise their standard and finally to achieve university status and degrees. The point I want to make is that each step has been grounded firmly on past achievement, and each new privilege has been earned. The new bodies have sprung from small beginnings to meet our changing needs. Now it is fashionable to criticise this great system which we have built up, to point to other countries and their achievements under a different system, and to forget our own achievements alike in peace and war

As I said on the last occasion on which we discussed this subject in this House, I do not believe the defects in our education constitute the only reason for the lack of application of science to industry. There are many and more subtle reasons, including a deep-rooted suspicion of the practical man. I am glad to say that that is almost dead now, except in the Government service. But I do not for a moment suggest that all is well, and a more critical examination of our possible defects in this educational system can only do good. Harm will come if the attempts to put right the defects cause damage to our present system and devalue our present standards. Many people fear that the proposals in this Report go much further than is necessary, that they will lead to more difficulties than they solve and much confusion. This new body which it is proposed to set up, this Royal College of Technology with all its paraphernalia of councils and boards and committees is intended to cover not only the whole field of technological education but to carry out also a whole series of undefined "other functions." The proposals for the creation of such an artificial body, such a mammoth mushroom growth, by purely administrative action, for granting a Royal Charter to a body which has not yet proved its worth, for the domination of this body by Government-appointed nominees, for new awards by it that already have quite a different meaning in a different sphere and already have a prestige in that sphere—all these cause serious misgivings

And all these misgivings are reinforced by the peculiar composition of the National Advisory Council which has been set up. No professional institution is represented on that Council as such, and there was a deliberate decision of the Council that the draft proposals issued some time ago should be issued without any previous consultation with professional institutions. I also understand from those who have been present at the meetings that the impression has often been given that the Ministry of Education have made up their minds that these proposals are to be forced through, whether people like them or not. As a result, there is widespread doubt and suspicion of the motives behind the proposals. I do not say that in any spiteful spirit, but because I sincerely believe it to be a fact. The National Advisory Council have done much hard and valuable work. Nevertheless, the doubts and suspicions I mention are so widespread that there is a great danger that, unless something is done to allay them, the improvement that these proposals are designed to make will not be achieved and the whole scheme will collapse in ridicule and disappointment, to the great detriment of technological education and of industry. My purpose in putting down this Motion, then, is to give another opportunity for discussion before the Minister of Education comes to a final decision on these proposals and to give another opportunity for some of these doubts and suspicions to be allayed, so that when the final proposals are accepted they will be accepted in a spirit of co-operation by all concerned and may be given the best chance of success

I now turn to the Report. First of all, it is not clear what precise type of scientific education these proposals are intended to help. The spectrum of technological education extends from the university degree in pure science through university-taught applied science and higher technological education in the technical colleges to the training of technicians in technical colleges. I understand that these proposals aim at improving higher technological education given by technical colleges. I should like to ask whether it is intended that these proposals should cater equally for the old and well-established technologies, like engineering, and for the new technologies, such as plastics, ceramics and the like. I shall return to that point later

I should like to turn to paragraph 18 of the Report. There is absolutely no disagreement with sub-paragraphs (a) and (b). These provide for The further development of high level courses of various kinds based on a sufficient scientific foundation …

and, secondly, in order to achieve a high standard of education, for a radical improvement in the finance, staffing, equipment and accommodation of the colleges to enable them to develop such courses.

There is no disagreement on either of those suggestions. The first step to improve higher technological education is to improve the facilities at the technical colleges themselves. The standard of courses will improve, and the prestige of the awards they give will improve automatically. Students will be attracted to them, and the question of awards, to which the National Advisory Council's proposals give such prominence, will assume its proper proportion. I very much doubt whether giving awards high-sounding titles and setting up some new organisation with a Royal charter will make any contribution to the high standing that the National Advisory Council wish for this new body. It seems to me that high standing has to be earned, and the proposals are a clear case of putting the cart before the horse. I do not deny that some indication is required that those who have passed through these courses have successfully completed them; and I entirely agree that a system of external examinations is not satisfactory, because it does not give the technical colleges the freedom they must have if they are to develop adequately. But there are already accepted qualifications awarded as a result of internal examinations—I refer of course to the national certificates and diplomas, whose standard has been so successfully maintained by co-operation between the Ministry of Education and the professional institutions. I suggest that improvements in the facilities of technical colleges will automatically make the awards they give rise in prestige and standard, and it will no doubt soon be necessary to create a new award of a higher standard than at present exists

There is one difficulty in these courses and awards which I do not think the National Advisory Council's proposals will overcome. At present, many students take external degrees instead of the more suitable national diploma courses because of the high prestige that attaches to the word "degree," in spite of the fact that the London external degree is really becoming somewhat of an anomaly. The present trend is to make universities residential, so that the possession of a degree involves all that attendance at a residential university means. It seems to me that the difficulty of the high prestige of the external degree deflecting students from the really more suitable courses will remain until the standard of purely technical college courses and awards has been raised and sufficient distinction has been earned to attract students to them. In passing, I should like to say that I think the emphasis given all through this Report to comparing the new awards that are proposed with university degrees is unfortunate. To be successful the new courses must be distinct and separate from the university degrees. The basis of the courses will be different and too much emphasis on the high standard of university degrees will make these new courses try to copy the degree courses to their own detriment. I suggest that in the established technologies, like engineering, the overriding requirement is improved facilities at the technical colleges. There will then be excellent facilities at every level and no devaluing or confusion of existing awards

The problem of the newer technologies is slightly different. There is not always a suitable award at every level. It is quite easy to be confused by the great variety of, what I call, the new technologies—namely, chemical engineering, textiles, plastics, horology, brewing and even laundering, to mention but a few. Very few of the new technologies have reached a stage at which they have a science of their own. The majority of them are mere application of well-known and well-established fundamental sciences. For instance, the great plastic industry is based on chemistry. Those who would be high technologists in the plastic industry must have a solid grounding in the fundamentals of chemistry— and for chemists there are already adequate degrees and courses at all levels. I suggest that the requirements of the new technologies are already met at the highest level, and what are required are better courses, perhaps at the level of the national diplomas. Here, again, then, the requirement is for improved facilities at the technical colleges and some new courses

I now turn to the type of body that the National Advisory Council proposes to set up. The various alternatives that have been suggested to the National Advisory Council are set out in paragraphs 33 to 42. I should like to draw your Lordship's attention to paragraph 42, which says: Many valuable emendations in the nomenclature and in the details of the constitution of such a body"—

that is the Royal College of Technology— have been received, but there is so strong a measure of support for its fundamental principles from a variety of different sources that we are encouraged to maintain them…

I have not yet had any evidence of any support from anybody for the proposals contained in this Report. I have heard of the views of a number of the major professional institutions, and I have seen the views expressed by some industrial organisations, and I have not heard of any support for these proposals. I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply where that support came from. Did it come only from the local authorities, or where else did it come from? Your Lordships will see in the other proposals that details are given as to where the support came from

My main objections to the proposals in this Report are that the body that is to be set up is a great, cumbersome, bureaucratic machine; it will involve more committees, and there are already too many committees on which able men spend too much time; and it will duplicate the work of existing professional institutions. Further, I do not agree with one body being concerned both with the standard of courses and awards and also with the wider educational functions, which are not clearly defined in the Report but which I presume to include the organisation, staffing, and finance of the colleges, and the question of co-operation with industry. That last point of co-operation with industry, so as to make these courses the success that they should be, is most important. I am sure that that co-operation will not be best achieved by the same body that is responsible for maintaining the standards of courses and awards and the educational requirements, being responsible for co-operation with industry. It seems to me clear that two entirely separate bodies are required

The question of awards is closely connected with the type of body that is set up. On this point the Report is difficult to follow. Paragraph 46 says: While we do not propose to set out a detailed structure the following pattern appears to us to be the most appropriate, having regard to the importance of avoiding confusion with functions, titles and awards peculiar to professional institutions, universities and other bodies …

Yet a few lines further down we find the proposal for granting an award for membership to those who satisfactorily complete the post-graduate courses in the colleges. As your Lordships well know, the title of membership is already used by professional institutions to indicate a person who has not only academic qualifications but, in addition, full professional qualifications. This point was clearly pointed out by the professional institutions in their remarks on the draft Report of the National Advisory Council, and it is most disturbing to find that there has been no alteration in this proposal. It seems to me to be another example of the anxiety which the National Advisory Council appear to have to give this new body a flying start by tying on to it prestige that really belongs to existing bodies and qualifications. In my view, that can lead only to confusion, ridicule and devaluing. The National Advisory Council have been at great pains not to trespass on the preserves of universities, and it is unfortunate that they seem to have been less careful not to trespass on the preserves of the professional institutions

I should like to conclude with a few constructive suggestions. First and foremost, I would suggest to the Minister of Education that he should consider most carefully the suggestions that were made to him as a result of his invitation in the foreword of this Report. I sincerely hope that more notice will be taken of those suggestions than was taken by the National Advisory Council of the suggestions made to them after the issue of their draft Report. I would ask him to believe that the suggestions that are made to him are made in all sincerity. I hope that he will keep an open mind, and not allow any idea of improving the status or prestige of his Department to influence his judgment

It is a difficult problem that we have to solve. We shall solve it only with the co-operation of all the interested bodies, and particularly those who have a tremendous amount of experience in these matters. New bodies and awards with high-sounding titles will help very little. I suggest that the required improvement can be made by the selection of a few suitable technical colleges for giving higher technological courses; and arrangements will have to be made for transferring the other important functions of the technical colleges elsewhere. A small body could be set up which would be concerned only with the control and organisation of courses and awards, containing representatives from the universities, technical colleges, professional institutions and the Minister of Education. They could organise and control the courses and awards in technologies where there is at present inadequate provision. I suggest that the selected colleges might be called Royal Colleges of Technology. The awards given by the colleges must be distinct from anything that exists at present. I suggest that a graduate of the Royal College of Technology, Sheffield, or wherever it is, would be a suitable award at a first award level, and perhaps a Royal Diploma in Technology at a post-graduate level. I suggest that the National Advisory Council, or some similar body, should be kept in being for carrying out the wider functions, including co-operation with industry which will be required. In some such system I believe that the Royal College of Technology would have the freedom which they must be given if they are to develop properly. The awards would soon gain eminence nationally and in local industry. That would provide technology with a distinction of its own, and there would be confusion with neither university degrees nor established professional qualifications

Most important, I believe that such proposals as those would have the support, not only of the professional institutes and industry but also of the technical colleges themselves. They are free from the vast, cumbersome bureaucracy which is involved in the National Advisory's Council's proposals. I have no time to deal with all the other suggestions which have been made, as to whether it is possible to make increased university contributions to technological education, or whether it is desirable and practical to establish a new technical university. I am in full agreement with the National Advisory Council that the problem of increasing the technical colleges must be tackled, and I suggest that it should be done in some such way as I have suggested. I beg to move for Papers

5.22 p.m

LORD MARLEY

My Lords, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Viscount who has put before us and discussed the problem of technological education. His analysis of the Council's Report has been most useful, and whether we agree with his criticisms or not, he has done a valuable service. I regard as one of the most important parts of the Report—and here I agree with the noble Viscount—the foreword by the Minister of Education, because he has stated that he welcomes and will consider any comments. I am quite certain that he will take the discussion in your Lordships' House as a comment, or a series of comments, which he will welcome and consider.

When I came to read this Report I looked for two things. I first wanted to see what line the Council took on the general policy of an upgrading of the technical colleges, and then I wanted to see what line they took on the question of the creation of one or more tech-nological institutes, on lines similar to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, or those at Zurich and elsewhere. With regard to the first, the upgrading of technical colleges, I found that in the main— apart from the point brought out by the mover of the Motion—the Report was limited to this upgrading question. As regards the National Institute, to use a colloquialism they seemed to "pass the buck" to the University Grants Committee. They made no recommendation on technological universities, as the matter was under consideration by the University Grants Committee. They went on to say that the fact of this consideration was not of itself a sufficient alternative to the proposals of the Council for upgrading technical schools. It happens that the University Grants Committee reported a few days ago on this very matter, and this is what they said: We have fell that post-graduate courses would best be provided as developments of existing faculties of technology rather than, as the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy first suggested, by the establishment within the Universities of one or more new technological institutes, with independent governing bodies. So the University Grants Committee have come out against the proposal for one or more technological institutes.

It is not without interest that on the sub-committee of the University Grants Committee dealing with this matter sits Sir Henry Tizard, who has himself been one of the main supporters of the idea of technological institutes. At public meetings he has come out categorically in favour of at least two such institutes, one for England and one for Scotland. He criticises the limiting of this work to existing universities because the appointment of the teachers, in the case of the universities, is in the hands of the university appointments board, rather than of the technological faculty itself. It will be interesting, of course, when we get statements by people like Sir Henry Tizard on this matter.

Meanwhile, we have had criticisms from certain other people, and I want to quote something which Sir Ewart Smith said on this matter. Sir Ewart Smith is Technical Director of I.C.I., and he spoke at one of the meetings of a body possessing the long-winded title of the Home Counties Regional Advisory Council for Higher Technological Education. No doubt that will be translated at some future time into initials, the meaning of which we shall forget and the work of which we shall never see. We owe a debt of gratitude to The Times Educational Supplement for reporting his remarks fully as follows: The National Advisory Council's Report had carefully avoided giving any offence to the technical colleges and their rulers, the local authorities. It would be possible to give a few technical colleges improved status, but it has proved too difficult to select which—hence the Report promises a future of more money, spread thinly and to least effect, over a large number of technical colleges. There is the case against relying merely on the upgrading of technical colleges. I am not saying a word against the work of these colleges, because in many cases it is admirable.

Now we have in the Palace of Westminster an organisation known as the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, of which many noble Lords in this House are members. That Committee issued a report in 1947 on this matter. It was a good practical report, and they urged again the upgrading of technical colleges by increased recognition of universities. They praised the constitution of existing colleges of technology, and they dealt particularly with the utterly unfair differentiation between the salaries in universities and the salaries of the heads of technical or technological colleges, a very serious difference which cannot but affect the value of the technological training which is so vital to this country. It is interesting to note that yet another organisation took up this point—I refer to the Institute of Physics. They criticised the failure of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee to come out in favour of the long-term project of the technological institute and their decision to support the short-term project merely upgrading technical colleges. They pointed out a curious fact which will be within the knowledge of every member of your Lordships' House. They state: There is always reason to fear that the temporary measures will continue to exist for a much longer time than was originally intended, and this might prejudice and would certainly delay the final establishment of a scheme representing a real solution. We are all aware of ease after case in which a temporary measure has remained as a sort of permanent corset to our legislation in the many years that have followed, long after the real value of that temporary measure has outlived itself. We had an example in a Bill immediately before this discussion this afternoon.

Let me say one word here of gratitude to The Times and The Times Educational Supplement for the work they did in providing hospitality for a series of articles early last year on the long-term problem of new technological institutes. These articles were republished in a pamphlet; and the only criticism I have of that pamphlet is its title, which is The Case for the Technical University. I think it is a profound mistake to talk about a "technical university." I believe I shall have general support far my belief that such an institution should be called a technological university. However, I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, is to speak in a moment or two; and as the best of the articles in this pamphlet was written by him—an article so clear, so persuasive and so lucid that I cannot see how it can fail to convert people to support a long-term project—I hope Lord Cherwell will say a word on that title. No doubt he has that pamphlet in his mind and I hope he will support me in my desire for a clarification of terminology. It will be very helpful if we distinguish, as indeed we must, between technological and technical.

I want to say now a word about the pioneer Committee upon which our discussions are based, the Chairman of which was Lord Eustace Percy. That Committee did a very valuable piece of work. They laid down certain principles which were then new but which to-day are commonplace and are accepted by every-body. Let me remind your Lordships of the principles which that Committee laid down. First, they laid down the vital importance of improving productivity; and, as was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, they stressed the need for the fullest possible application of science to industry. Those are the two principles they laid down. They went on to say—and it was a justifiable complaint: Too large a proportion of the best output of schools goes to non-industrial occupations. Industry and educational institutions training for industry are not getting their fair share of the national ability. That was the case then, and it is still the case to a considerable extent. We know that a supply of recruits will go to our technical colleges and eventually to our technological institutes—if and when we found them, as I trust we shall. We know that the supply of these new recruits will come from our new secondary school system.

The Percy Report came out just after the 1944 Act was passed, and it mentioned the secondary and technical schools. It is interesting to note that the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee brought out a Report on this matter only about four months ago, in which they dealt with the question of education and skilled man-power; and they urged that there should be more secondary technical schools and that secondary modern schools should expand greatly opportunities for education with a technical bias. Only about 3 per cent. are technical. I believe that there should be a technical department in all our secondary schools, whether they are grammar schools, modern schools or technical schools; but my remarks apply chiefly to modern schools and grammar schools because, of course, technical schools already have their technical teaching. What we need, I think, is, so to speak, a liquidity in the movement of our young boys from grammar schools to modern schools and from modern schools to technical schools, or vice versa, without any feeling that there is a loss of prestige in going from one type of school to another, such as exists at present.

It seems to me that the foundation of the idea of the comprehensive school is to make it possible to move children into that section of work for which they have an aptitude or bent, and to make it easy to move them. I see no reason why we should not have an early bias, so long as it is accompanied by adequate teaching in other sections of education, so that these children can, through that early training, make their greatest possible contribution to the good of our country. Many children are much happier doing technical things—craft work and handwork. No one who has visited the United States and has seen the fine comprehensive schools there, and discussed the subject with the teachers, will fail to see the importance of this, and will not want to see the development of a similar movement in this country. It will be to the good of the supply of recruits for the technical colleges, technical work generally, and technology. It will aid in the maintenance of, and will even improve, our productivity; and it will surely aid in the underpinning of the foundations of our industrial security. It will enable us to help the backward areas of the world with some of which we are so closely associated; and I believe it will do a great deal to secure the continuance and maintenance of the standard of life which we have built up.

It is for that reason that I feel that all the points which have emerged from this and other discussions which are taking place should be considered in the light of their contribution to the support of technological institutes and the long-term project. But we must start as soon as possible; the sooner we start, the sooner we shall get the results which will be apparent in higher industrial productivity.

5.40 p.m

LORD CHERWELL

My Lords, almost my first speech in this House was a plea for the development of a technological university—others prefer to call it a technological institute, but I do not very much mind about the name. I was entirely in agreement with the speech we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Marley, not because he was most kind in his remarks, which were undeserved, about my contribution to The Times Educational Supplement but because in fact I think we are in complete agreement as to what is wanted. With much of what the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, said about the National Advisory Council, I was also in agreement, though I was certainly not in agreement with his apparent satisfaction with the present state of facilities for technical education in this country. Ever since I have been in your Lordships' House, we have always been fobbed off with some sort of statement that the matter was under urgent consideration, or something of that nature. I hope that now, at last, we may get something more than that. I have attended many meetings at the Royal Society and other places, and the consensus of opinion has very largely been in favour of some sort of technological university. The Government reply has usually been: "Oh well, we have our National Advisory Council. Let us await their Report." Well, the Report has now appeared. For some reason which I do not propose to investigate, the old tag about "The mountains were in labour and the ridiculous mouse appeared" came into my mind.

It is true that the National Advisory Council said that we ought to improve our technological education. But, as the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, said, how do they propose to set about it? The main recommendation is to found this Royal College of Technologists. As the noble Viscount said, that was putting the cart before the horse with a vengeance. What we want to do is to train technologists, not to crown them when we have got them. It is all very well to point to the Royal College of Physicians. What would the College be worth if we did not have medical schools to teach people to be doctors? I have not found any circle in which this Report has been favourably received, except perhaps the Ministry of Education which appointed the Committee and which, of course, would probably tend to be in agreement with what the Committee recommend. So far as I know, the universities—at least I know my own university and also Cambridge—have definitely opposed the recommendations, as have most of the professional institutes. The Institute of Physics said that: Raising the status and prestige of technological education will of course meet with universal acceptance, but the Board cannot accept the means by which it is proposed to achieve this end. The Institute of Chemistry, discussing this same Report, say: We are in complete sympathy with the main object of the scheme proposed—namely, to raise the standard of technological education—but we disagree with the means proposed for realising that end. I have not the university reports before me, but perhaps it is not too much to hope that the Minister will be interested by a long article in that well-known journal Nature, which is renowned for its mild and friendly approach to everything, and its unpolitical forms of expression; it expresses the hope that the Minister may be induced to leave: a singularly inept report severely alone. We are always being exhorted by the Government to produce more. That is right. We are told that we must not suggest longer hours and harder work; men are doing what they can. The only way to produce more without working harder is to improve our methods. Who is to tell us how to improve our methods except the well-trained technologist?

I consider this question is one of the most important questions that confronts the country. The immense strides made in the Victorian era in the power and prestige of Britain, and in the standard of life of the country, were simply a reflection of the increase in productivity. It was not merely that we introduced coal to make steam and power, and so on. A whole host of new techniques, the application of new methods to manufacture, and the introduction of new materials which were brought into use all played their part.

England, or rather the United Kingdom, was the first in the field. For a long time we were alone in using these new technologies and even when rivals appeared we always managed to keep ahead. A hundred years ago science was a tiny fraction of what it is to-day, and methods of manufacture were correspondingly simple. You could get ahead by trial and error; and immense fields of knowledge, which to-day have been codified and reduced to their simplest terms, consisted then of little more than the general impressions and know-how of a number of individuals, whose long experience had subconsciously been condensed into a sort of method. But things are vastly different to-day. Enormous branches of technology have now been scientifically worked out and reduced almost to branches of science. Nowadays we know the reason why you have to add a certain percentage of this or that in a foundry in order to produce a metal of given qualities. We know the temperature at which a metal ought to be cast, and we know the difference it will make if we cool it fast or slowly. We know the temperature at which it is to be done. We also know how to see that the temperature is right. Gone are the days when Bill said, "I always found a shovelful of phosphate improved the glass"; or the time when George said "When the flame turns that colour it is about time to tip up the crucible."

Nowadays these things are calculated and measured and we know how and why these various operations ought to be done. I am using metallurgy only as an example. The same sort of improvements and changes have come over the whole field of chemical engineering and, indeed, in all processes where materials are being made and handled. Even greater progress has been made in all the other various branches. Where formerly improvement in the design of a dynamo could proceed only by varying slightly certain quantities in existing models and discovering what the effect was on the magnetic flux and the heating, and so on, nowadays it can all be worked out in advance—the heating of coils, the performance, and things like that. Similar improvements have been made in all the other branches. You can work out in advance the performance of steam engines and of jet engines; you can forecast the performance of ships or of aircraft. A man can say in advance what the design should be of a radio valve or of an atomic pile.

I always resent the idea that that sort of thing described as technological vocational training does not entitle a man to the same consideration as a man with a university degree; that the sort of people who know those things ought to be on "tap," and not on top. I really can only attribute this to the complete ignorance of people of the vast and complex body of knowledge of all these technological matters that has been developed. I maintain that as good a brain is wanted and perhaps a longer period of study for a man to learn to be a good general technologist as is needed to be a member of any of the learned professions. It is monstrous that a man should be looked down upon as being of a lower class than a man who happens to know a great deal about history or law or, for that matter, medicine or theology. It is absurd that a man who may not even know how electricity is produced or how aluminium is made but who knows the various arguments about who defaced the statues in Athens before the Syracusian expedition or how Clodius came to gate-crash the Vestal Virgins' party, is considered a cultivated gentleman; but if a man is familiar with all the recondite aspects of modern production on which our life as a country depends but does not know all the details of the life of Alcibiades or Clodius or whoever it may be —though he usually knows a good deal more about those than the historian knows about technology—he is considered barely fit to sit down at the same table. Therefore, I am anxious that this technological university, if and when it is founded, should give exactly the same degrees and have the same prestige and the same standing as the universities, and not be regarded as giving something like a little bit of vocational training—a few courses that a man undergoes which will fit him to tell us about these things. Of course, the pre-eminence we enjoyed in Victorian times has vanished in the last fifty years, and in my view the reason for that is that we have not had enough high-calibre technologists. A very intelligible and indeed very highly "cultured" gentleman who has had great experience in America the other day said to me that the real threat to the British export trade is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and although that is concentrating the truth in an epigram, there is none the less a good deal of truth in it. I am told that it is pessimistic to say these things; that it is much better to seek comfort in wishful thinking and talk about all our wonderful efforts and production.

If the House will bear with me, I should like to mention a few facts that were given in the excellent paper to which Lord Marley referred, by Sir Ewart Smith at the British Association last year, when he considered English and American productivity. Being a great technologist he did not fall into the usual trap of trying to compare the absolute values of American and English productivity. That is a very difficult thing to measure. What he did —and I think it was a very good way of proceeding—was to compare the rate of rise of productivity in the two countries. That is much more reliable as the categories and the methods of measurement do not change over the years, so that if the Americans show one rate of rise and we show another, we can probably rely on those figures. The results he found are in my view terrifying. The American rate of rise in the last sixty years has been 3 per cent., and our rate of rise has been 1½ per cent. At first sight that does not seem very terrible—1½ per cent. difference. But we must remember that this is a rate of rise and it works at compound interest, so that while the United Kingdom in, let us say, forty-six years doubles its productivity—I am talking always of productivity and not of production, because it is productivity per man-hour, taking account of the shorter hours and all the rest of it, that matters—in the same forty-six years the United States will multiply theirs four times. It was reputed, though this of course is not so certain, that the production of the two countries was about equal in 1890. In 1936 it was twice as big in America as here. Think of what is going to happen in the next forty-six years if this goes on. In 1982 America will have lour times our productivity. How can we possibly compete with that sort of thing? How can we, a country which depends upon its exports to feed its swollen population, face such a prospect with anything except great anxiety?

Take, as an example, steel. In the last fifty years American productivity has gone up 2.4 per cent. per year; our productivity went up at a rate of 1.4 per cent. I do not want this to be used as an argument in favour of the vesting date, but there is no doubt that the American productivity per man has gone up faster than our own. I believe that that is largely owing to the number of men who are trained in technology. Here again Sir Ewart gave some useful figures. There is no use in trying to compare these figures absolutely, because people will say that the standards are different; but if you take the rate of rise in the number taking technical degrees, you will find that between 1926 and 1939 the figure in America rose from 70 per million to 110 per million, whereas here it rose only from 30 to 40 per million. Again we have this large difference. Or take the proportion of men taking technology in the universities. In the United Kingdom it fell slightly, but in America it is more than doubled. I maintain that one of the main reasons why the Americans have been able to increase their productivity so fast has been that they have had a greater number of well-trained technologists to call on. I agree with Lord Caldecote that that is not the only reason, but I am sure it is one of the principal reasons.

Of course, in an attempt to get a technological university one is always fighting on two fronts. On the one hand we have the "cultured" people who do not believe in fostering technological education, and who deny the technologist the same facilities and prestige of other men. I do not think I need waste much time on them. But the second front is the more dangerous one in a way, and it is formed by the engineering faculties in the universities. They say, "We are doing all that is wanted; what is all the fuss about?" There, I think, there is a certain misunderstanding. I have nothing whatever against the engineering faculties in the universities. I am all in favour of helping and assisting and expanding them in every way we can, but I maintain that they are no substitute for a technological university. Our technologists need to be broad-minded people who have a general knowledge of all the questions at issue, the whole of the methods of production. It is no use having a man who is an expert on one matter, who knows all about radio valves but does not know about the steam engine. You want a broad general training to start with, besides ancillary subjects such as law and economics. You want the various branches of technology, based, of course, on physics and chemistry; civil engineering; architecture; a knowledge of the prime movers such as steam engines; water turbines; the heavy electric technology and the light electric technology, which is very important now. You want some knowledge of aeronautical and automobile engineering, and a great deal of textile technology ought to be studied in this country. We want a man who knows something about plastics, ceramics and rubber. We do not want a man who knows only one thing; we want a man who knows a great many of these things. He must have a general knowledge of the whole chemical engineering; above all, all the properties and qualities of materials under various conditions of pressure and temperature and stress, and how they behave in such circumstances.

These are not just things that are learnt by heart. If they are to be any good, the people concerned must understand the reasons for the various properties that are found and the theories that have been adduced in order to explain them. You can call it applied physics or chemistry if you like. You must know these theories and understand them, together with the mathematics that are required, in order to calculate what the effect will be of varying the design of a machine or introducing some new substance into a mixture or whatever it may be. To study all these subjects you need many professors and departments.

As I told the House on a previous occasion, Aix-la-Chapelle, which is not a very big technological university in Germany, has fifty chairs in technological subjects and thirty departments in which a great deal of high-grade research, besides teaching, is going on. And, of course, a large number of readers and lecturers and demonstrators are found there, as well as a number of what are called honorary professors, who are big industrialists who come and give lectures once a week in the university. Aix is only one of eight such technological universities in Western Germany.

Obviously, institutions like these—there are seven others in Western Germany alone—are expensive. It costs a great deal to run a show like that. In Aix this year they are spending about £750,000. They call about half of it non-recurrent expenditure. Most academic people know what non-recurrent expenditure is. This would be extremely wasteful if there were only a few hundred students, but when there are 3,000 or 4,000 students, as there are at Aix, it becomes a worthwhile proposition. A small university could not absorb 3,000 or 4,000 students or 50 professors. London perhaps could manage it, for the Imperial College— which the Prince Consort with great foresight intended to develop into a technological university of this sort—could absorb that number of students without getting out of balance.

If it is agreed that we want technological universities, at any rate as an experiment, what is the best way to proceed? I still hanker after a new foundation. I think that that might perhaps be best. I admit that there are a great many difficulties and that it might take a long time. The next possibility would be, perhaps, to enlarge and expand and perhaps move the Imperial College, South Kensington. It could form the nucleus of a technological university together with the City and Guilds and so on. I think it might easily be developed into a first-class technological university. Another possible method would, of course, be to select one of the smaller provincial universities and to transform it into a technological university. It would be necessary to persuade the authorities to extend their technological activities and to allow some of their arts activities to decay and atrophy. In that way you would, by a process of metamorphosis, turn it into a technological university. I believe that that rather appeals to the University Grants Committee, whose chairman is a geologist and who is therefore well acquainted with what, I believe, they call pseudo morphs —which I believe are crystals in which the original substance has been dissolved away and replaced by another substance simulating the original crystalline form. These methods which I have just outlined would have the great advantage that the bodies in question are under the University Grants Committee and would start with the prestige and standing of universities.

There is a third possibility, and it is one which is, I think, favoured by the noble Viscount and also by the National Advisory Council. That is to build up and expand some of the technical colleges. That may, or may not be, a good method. I personally am a little dubious about it. The technical colleges, of course, fulfil a very important function. They produce in thousands the technicians who are so very badly wanted in industry all over the country. But there is this dangerous confusion of terminology between technicians and technologists to which Lord Marley has referred. I think that Lord Chorley made it very clear on a previous occasion. Roughly speaking, there is about the same gap between a technician and a technologist as there is between a person who has had a few weeks' training at a business college and a first-rate economist. They are people of a different type. One is a person of a highly-trained academic type with at least four or five years' full-time study behind him. The other is a person who has acquired a certain amount of technical knowledge in a limited field and who may be very good with his hands in certain ways. Perhaps, for instance, he may be able to repair a wireless set. But his field is certainly very much narrower than that of the technologist.

Technical colleges, I believe, vary enormously. Some of them, I understand, are almost on the way to becoming technological institutions; but at the one I know most about they are teaching, for instance, dressmaking, cooking and country dancing—I think that the Town Council refused to permit ball-room dancing the other day. The subjects which I have mentioned are, no doubt, very estimable but I do not think that anyone would say that a university ought to teach that sort of thing. If you want to build up your technical college you will have to drop what I might call these household subjects and expand the technological side. I think, therefore, that it might be much more difficult to transform a technical college into a technological university than it would be to transform the Imperial College or perhaps one of the smaller universities as I have indicated.

Above all, there is the great objection —I know I can hardly hope to carry the Minister with me in this—that technical colleges are under the local authority and the Ministry of Education whereas universities are under the University Grants Committee. All my friends feel very strongly that if we want to give technologists proper prestige and standing they must be absolutely on a par with the ordinary university-trained man. If you want to have a technological university with a proper position in the country you must have a charter and the independence, the freedom and the traditional encouragement of research which you find in the universities financed through the University Grants Committee.

I do not want to say a word against the Ministry of Education. The Permanent Secretary is an old colleague of mine and, I hope I may say, an old friend of mine. But I think he would agree that universities should not be under the Ministry of Education. Therefore, if you want technological universities to have the same status and prestige they must not be under the Ministry. I think it is essential that they should have all the rights, powers, privileges and prestige of a university. They should fix their own curricula, carry out examinations and confer degrees like other universities, and it would be a fatal mistake to put them in a different category. If they do that —award their own degrees and so on— it will soon become known—especially with the help of the professional institutions—which are good and which are bad. I do not think it will be necessary to have a Royal College of Technology to give a. sort of super blessing to the degrees which students obtain.

All I beg is that something should happen. Many people—I should think the majority—want some sort of technological university. Whether we found a new one or expand and transform Imperial College into one, or whether by some metamorphosis we change a provincial university into one, or, finally, whether we translate (in the Shakespearean sense) a technical college into one, all I say is, let us do something and do it soon. Otherwise the exhortations to produce more will not carry great conviction.

6.10 p.m

LORD CALVERLEY

My Lords, I intervene in this debate as one of the few speakers who is a layman; that is to say one with very little academic training—or any other for that matter. I listened with great interest to the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. I believe he is a lecturer in engineering at Cambridge. That is not to say that he represents a vested interest—at any rate, if he does, it is a good one. I must admit that I felt rather, if I may so put it, as if I were having a cold shower bath when he started off—in fact, the same note went on for nearly the whole of his speech—by developing the theme of the inevitability of gradualness. In that I could not agree with him. If we have no up-grading, we shall have a down-grading, and then, ultimately, a de-grading, of our technical institutes. I think it is disastrous for this House to give them any idea that they are going to be impeded in any way. In a sense I am a traditionalist. I should like to know how much time the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, would allow a technical college before it became sufficiently efficient to take the new name of "technological institute"—a term which gets me feather-mouthed in trying to use it.

Sixty-nine years ago my mother, a weaver, carried me to the opening of the first technical college in our town. I am glad to know that I was there, though the only thing I remember was seeing the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII—he was a jolly man, I thought as a kid. That college was founded by the munificence of the Cloth Workers Company, and through the farsighted policy of men who had been brought up in the worsted industry. This afternoon I have seen two members of your Lordships' House whose forbears were concerned in the establishment of this college. When I was ten I graduated into a factory, where I heard the term "china grass." At first I did not know what it meant, and learned afterwards that it was a rammy thread. That was a long time ago, and perhaps the founders of the college did not foresee the day which we have now reached, when the research that they instituted into the production and use of textiles has become of vital importance, unless we wish to be dressed like the Ancient Britons.

At a recent meeting of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, our President, remarked that it takes a long time to make headway in this country. We must allow twenty years in order to make any progress at all. But there has been progress in our technical college. It was found necessary to add courses in engineering, chemistry and other technologies. The men who founded it could not stand the expense, and the much-maligned municipality came to the rescue. The Board of Education, as it was then, refused to take over the college, and the ratepayers had to pay the cost; but they did not mind, because the college had built up a tradition worthy of the textile manufacturer who founded it, Mr. W. E. Foster, who later sat in another place. To-day, with a goodly supply of day students, and with two or three thousand part-time and evening students, I feel that the work of this college would be frustrated if the Government adopted the policy advocated by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, in the first part of his speech, and by my noble friend Lord Chorley in the last debate we had on this subject—though possibly, of course, he has since had a change of heart. I beg the Government to take action on the best part of this Report. The Government have recommended that the University Grants Committee give a charter to Stoke for research in ceramics and the brewing of beer, which is a great international industry. I understand that a member of this House is to be vice-chancellor of these new departments.

The technical colleges are now faced with the financial problem which faced their founders in the past, when they could no longer uphold the child of their dreams, because it had become too lusty and was no longer a dream child. I spent many years as an elected representative on the board of governors helping to administer one of these colleges. I am proud that I was carried there when it was opened, and proud to be an administrator of it. The first of these colleges cannot now compete with the one or two universities who, instead of sticking like a cobbler to the last, are intruding, with the help of the University Grants Committee. If we have a distinguished professor or head of a department, he can, like a footballer, get his transfer, and earn more money. The noble Lord, Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, is connected with Manchester University, although I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, is the Chancellor. Lord Simon of Wythenshawe said the other day: "We carry on because we receive 75 per cent. of our income from the University Grants Committee, and I believe the other universities are helped in a similar manner."

I could speak for a much longer time. I remember that when Lord Quickswood (as he now is) was the member for Oxford University, he would come down and make a brilliant speech. I believe there was some money to be shared out from the Boxer Rebellion, or the old opium war—at any rate, it was from China. There was money in it, and he said: "I am Oxford. I want my share of it"—and a kind-hearted House of Commons said: "Yes, certainly." But now we have the University Grants Committee. I suppose the taxpayer provides the money and, therefore, all taxpayers should have a share in it. I have received a pamphlet from the Royal Institute of Chemists. Where I come from we are proud of what we are doing in research in chemistry. They make almost the same point as the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, and seem a little dubious as to whether or not the University Grants Committee is without bias. They say—and I say the same—that a progressive Government should institute a Technical Grants Committee.

This college of ours, with its great extensions, has been able to carry on with its research in spite of handicaps. These colleges should be encouraged. Sir Henry Tizard has pointed the way, and he gave mo his blessing. I hope that your Lordships will give blessing to these technical colleges. I believe that Lough-borough is one of the greatest engineering colleges in the country, although I cannot speak with the authority of the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, or the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. We ask for your Lordships' encouragement, and that the Minister of Education shall not be like Pharaoh of old and ask us to make bricks without straw. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Burden, is to reply. I am ready to hand him a bouquet if he answers my way, or a brick if he does not. I believe it will be the first time he has gone to that Box. I wish that I could speak from a Box: it is so difficult when one has a beautiful speech prepared, with notes, and then one gets all mixed up—and I get mixed up most times when I speak in this House. I ask the noble Lord to decrease the weight that is overpressing progressive authorities honestly wishing to give this technological education. It is almost a disgrace to this country which was in the van of this education, that we cannot compete with Switzerland and similar places. I hope that the Government will remedy the difficulty.

6.27 p.m

VISCOUNT FALMOUTH

My Lords, I should also like to aid my tribute and thanks to the noble Viscount who introduced this motion. As the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, said, he is an expert on these matters, being closely associated with the engineering laboratory at Cambridge. The Report deals with the future development of higher technological education. This is a subject which has always deeply interested your Lordships' House. But, as has been pointed out by previous speakers, there has been a great deal of anxiety created in the university world, and also amongst technical institutions, as to what would be the result of putting into operation the recommendations of this Report. In many ways the Report is somewhat difficult to follow. I feel that that is largely due to two matters. First, there is the title, The Future Development of Higher Technological Education. In a Report on the future development of higher technological education one would think that there would be a great deal about the University Grants Committee and the wonderful work they do in supplying grants to the various universities. There is very little about that in the Report. Surely, the Report, to get it absolutely clear, should be entitled, The Future Development of Higher Technological Education in Technical Colleges Administered by the Ministry of Education. If we had a Report drawn up on those lines we should know exactly where we were; but at the moment an ordinary person reading the Report finds it difficult to follow what is the purpose running through it. Another difficulty I find is the considerable confusion between what is technological and what is technical education—it swings to one side and then to the other. Unless a reader of the Report is quite clear in his own mind as to what it means, he is likely to be hopelessly confused, especially when reading paragraph 14, where aeronautics, heating and ventilating are dealt with, the first of which subjects is highly technological, and the others, I am quite certain, technical.

We cannot deal with this subject of higher technological education without placing universities in their rightful position. The great universities of the country have schools of engineering, physics and chemistry, which are of the highest quality. Although one is sometimes rather disappointed to hear people who should know better deprecating the importance of our universities, it is pleasant when one goes abroad and meets professors in different universities in Europe—and I understand the same applies in the United States—to find how much they appreciate the excellent work which is being done in technological subjects in this country. This is again borne out by the large number of professors in technical subjects who go across the Atlantic in the summer during the vacation to give lectures to the different American universities on some very recondite subjects, and upon which they are the world's recognised masters. It is a great mistake, therefore, and a great injustice, to deprecate the importance and the very high quality of the technical schools and universities.

Of course, we know that there are great disadvantages. Visitors to the United States are immensely impressed by the vast size of the buildings and the wonderful equipment they see displayed. This, of course, is largely due to the different financial positions of the two countries. But we have to remember that, while visitors may be very impressed by seeing wonderful equipment in laboratories, that does not always mean that the equipment means good work. In fact, I remember talking to the great Lord Rayleigh and he said: "Don't ever be deceived by 'brass.' "Casual visitors are always impressed by wonderful chromium-plated instruments and machines, but at the same time it does not mean that some of the "knock-ups" we see in this country are not just as efficient as, and probably more suitable for teaching students than, some of the complicated apparatus one sees abroad.

Finance is really at the bottom of the great difficulty facing the universities at the present time. In addition to finance, there is the question of staff. The staff problem is partly one of finance and partly due to the fact that the staff are just not in existence; and it is very difficult to create them. The University Grants Committee are fully seized of all these difficulties. They are an extremely friendly body, and they help the universities in every way they can. But one has to be a realist in this matter, and to appreciate the fact that many millions of pounds will be required to enable the universities to be properly equipped in buildings and equipment. When once you have those already established going, then you have the question of staff. Suitable staff to carry out these responsible duties are not to be found in a moment. They have to be gradually trained. We must go slowly, and we have to realise the position. Let the University Grants Committee, in view of the shortage of funds, try to develop one or two of the more prominent institutes at the moment; encourage them and let them have a far-sighted programme of gradual development. By that means we shall be able, over a period of time, to get the buildings and equipment, and then the staff must be trained. That staff will be able to go out into the world ready to help to fill the vacancies in the other universities and technical institutions which we hope, in the course of time, will be able to grow up.

Another matter which is of great interest in the Report is the one that I have mentioned before—paragraph 14. That deals with a subject which has created great interest in the teaching world—the mono-technical college, in so far as it deals with the college of aeronautics, which is mentioned in that paragraph. There are many people who feel that the mono-technical college is a profound mistake. If you are going to have a man trained in the highest degree in college, he has to be based on the fundamentals of his science. If he intends to be a telecommunications engineer, he has first and foremost to be a high-grade electrical engineer. He has to take his telecommunications, preferably as a post-graduate subject, but certainly as a third-year subject. One cannot really conceive of a college devoted entirely to telecommunications nor can one conceive of a college being devoted entirely to aeronautics. An aeronautical technologist has to be grounded in mathematics, and he has to be grounded in engineering. He should not take that course, except as a post-graduate course, or as a third-year course after he has taken his Part II exam. No man can become a high-grade technologist unless he is fully grounded in his subject.

There was an interesting case not long ago in connection with a very important university in the North of England. They established a department of fuel. It was adopted with a flourish of trumpets, and it was considered to be a very progressive step. As things turned out, the men who left the university from that department were not found to be as well equipped as they might have been, so now that particular university has changed its policy and established a department of chemical engineering, where the young men are thoroughly grounded in all the aspects of engineering chemistry. Then, with a post-graduate course, they can take fuel among many other subjects, which is the right way of doing it; and I am certain that success will follow. It seems to me that the position of the technical colleges which have been so much discussed to-day should really be that of training technicians, because, when all is said and done, a great number of high-grade technicians are required.

In this debate the importance of production has been stressed, but it is largely on the technicians of the country that this production will depend. It has been calculated in the great electrical industry that for every one professionally trained engineer we require at least ten technicians in order to keep the proper balance. Therefore, we must do everything we can to encourage the technical colleges to train technicians. By all means let them, in their higher flights, encourage the brighter lads to go forward into the universities; there should be no difficulty about this. It does seem to me that, if the technical colleges are to perform their proper function, they should be primarily to train technicians, because without a corps of technicians we cannot remain a great industrial country.

I was greatly interested in what Lord Cherwell had to say about technical universities, and he handed a very nice bouquet my way when he referred to the Imperial College as being first-class. But I think there is a great difference of opinion on this question of technical universities; and, speaking for myself alone, I feel that the Imperial College, situated as it is, enjoys a great degree of freedom within London University and yet, at the same time, enjoys considerable advantages from being associated with the University. I hope that it will not be subject to what I think the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, called "the painful metamorphosis," to which the suggestion he advanced would lead.

The real gist of the Council's Report is the setting up of the Royal College of Technologists. This, so far as I can make out, is to be another university, because you have the whole paraphernalia of a university set out in the Report. As has been said by more than one speaker already to-day, many people look upon an establishment like this as almost a disaster. Already the teaching staffs of universities have to spend a great deal of their time in attending various committees; there are endless boards of studies and courts to attend. Distinguished professors, whose time would be far better occupied in dealing with problems of their department, have to give up valuable time in dealing with these administrative matters. If we are to set up a College of Technology we shall have to staff it with distinguished men. We shall inevitably make the old choices again; we shall have to ask distinguished professors to sit on these boards; and we shall find that we are taking them away from their work, where they would be far more valuable than in this business of administration. This is a very serious matter.

There is another problem dealt with in this Report which gives rise to great anxiety. What will be the position, as the result of establishing this institution, of the great technical institutes who have qualifying examinations? This point has already been raised, but it is so important that I venture to mention it again. The great technical institutions of this country are one of the sources of pride of an industrial system. They maintain a wonderful technical standard; they insist that anyone who seeks membership complies with their conditions, and they maintain their standards very jealously. From time to time pressure is put on these institutions to lower their standards and requirements, in order that more people may be able to call themselves A.M.I.C.E. or A.M.I.M.E., or whatever it may be, because such qualifications form a very valuable addition to their qualifications. These attempts, however, have always been resisted, and the institutions have been able not only to maintain their standard but steadily to raise it—to their great credit, and to the enormous advantage of the country.

Practically all industries now are covered by technical institutions which have qualifying examinations. I believe that almost the only industry which is not so covered is that which is associated with ceramics and glass-making. In that industry there are two scientific bodies, but there are no qualifying examinations. In others, such as mechanical, electrical, and other engineering, plastics, chemistry, petroleum, and so on, there are qualifying examinations; those responsible insist that candidates who seek to enter that sphere must have the highest credentials possible. There is a fear that the proposed College of Technology would interfere with the high standing of these institutions; and, looking at the Report, one feels that that fear is well grounded. I hope that nothing whatever will be done to depreciate the value or importance of these institutional requirements. What is the purpose of this College? It is clearly intended to be a degree-giving College. At present, we have universities giving degrees. We have, in addition, the London External degree, which has been criticised from many angles but which fulfils a useful purpose. Although it is a non-residential degree, it is valuable, because there are many people who are unable to become resident in any college; and it has met this great need.

There is one matter about which this Report is silent, and that is the City and Guilds of London Institute. This is a very important examining body, based on the old City Guilds, and was established in 1878. At the present moment it has examinations in all kinds of technical subjects. I believe that I am right in saying that in 1949 it held examinations in 165 subjects, in over 1,000 centres, and that in that year there were 71,000 entrants. There were 79,000 entrants in 1950. This body was responsible for setting up the City and Guilds College, which is a constituent college of the Imperial College. On the other hand, it carries out examinations in infinitely varied subjects. It runs the whole gamut of technological and technical matters. It seems to me that here is a type of institution which is exactly what is needed. If it is destroyed it will be necessary to set up a new institution. It has been functioning for many years, and is still going from strength to strength. What is really wrong with our higher educational system is lack of money. That is the fundamental problem; and I hope that the Government, when they come to consider this Report, will decide that this proposed new Royal Technical College is quite unnecessary at the present time.

6.48 p.m

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, I should like to join in paying my tribute to the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, for giving us the opportunity of discussing this Report, and for the very able and informed appreciation of it which he gave to us. It is now nearly twelve months since the discussion to which noble Lords have referred took place in this House— a discussion which seemed to me very useful and valuable, and which I had hoped would have had some effect in inducing the Government to get a move on in this matter. I hoped it would stimulate the authorities to appreciate the real urgency of this problem. But the Minister, as I am afraid other Ministers have done in the past, took refuge behind the fact that he had some time beforehand established a Council to advise him on this problem; and he said that he could not make up his mind until he had received the Report of that Council.

The Council was set up in 1948. It took two years to produce its Report, which the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell referred to in rather contemptuous terms. The phrase which he used of it came, I must confess, into my own mind as into his—parturiunt montes nascitur ridiculus mus. Even now, apparently, although this Report has been before the country for more than three months, the Minister, at any rate so far as public utterances go, has still not been able to make up his mind what to do about it. I hope that the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Burden, to be made a little later on this evening will give us some indication that movement towards a policy is at last going to take place.

It is perhaps symptomatic of the importance which seems to be attached to this problem that we are given two hours at the end of one of our short days to discuss this important matter. If I appear to be adopting rather a scolding attitude at the opening of my remarks, it is because I think on the occasion of our last discussion everybody agreed that this matter is absolutely vital and absolutely urgent to the industrial future of this country. 1 have taken the opportunity to refresh my memory of what I myself said, as one does on these occasions, and I find that I used the expressions" vital importance "and" time is of the essence of the contract." Other noble Lords who took part in the debate afterwards did me the honour to approve all that I had said on those lines.

The urgency of the matter has only been masked, not removed, by what has happened in the interval. The international competition to which this country will sooner or later inevitably be subjected, and in which it will have to struggle for its industrial existence, has only been, in effect, put off for a time by the foot that Germany, one of our greatest competitors, has been rather delayed in getting back into her stride— although the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, has indicated that preparations are going on there—and by the fact that in America, particularly, the urgency of rearmament has turned away their competition to a substantial extent. Sooner or later, we shall have to meet that international competition. We are not taking the urgent steps that we ought to be taking to get ourselves ready for it.

On the occasion of our previous debate, it was agreed, I think, by everybody who took part in the discussion, with the possible exception of the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, hat the spearhead, and not only the spearhead but the great army, of the technologists on whom our industrial future depends, must come from the universities. The noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, said that the army was not large enough, and he wanted to have a substantial reserve force, marching along in parallel columns, who were to be trained in the new technological institutes which he advocated. He made it clear that the reason for that was that he did not think the universities could be expanded sufficiently to provide the necessary number of technologists, He pointed out, as he has again this evening, that in Western Germany there are eight of these technische hochschulen, and that they have between 2,500 and 3,000 students at each of them, making an army of somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000, which is double the number of students who are now in the technological and applied sciences faculties of our own universities.

I remember challenging him on that occasion as to whether he disagreed with the view expressed by the Ministry of Labour's Advisory Committee, that the 11,000 or so who are now in our universities were about sufficient for our needs, at any rate in the engineering faculties. He said categorically that the number was quite insufficient, and that we needed something like double that number. I have taken the trouble to look at the expansion which has taken place in the universities since the last war. It will interest the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell—possibly he knows it already—to know that by far the largest expansion in the universities has not taken place in the scientific faculties at all: it has taken place in the arts, and other faculties which are not concerned with science; although immediately after the war, in response to the Barlow Committee's recommendations, it was possible to step up rapidly the number of science students to the limits of the laboratories in the universities. That, however, has not gone further because further accommodation is not available for the students, and it is a question of building up new laboratories. The Government had not been ready to place adequate capital means at the disposal of the University Grants Committee and of the universities for the purpose of getting on with that work.

The University Grants Committee haw undoubtedly done their best, and so far as the equipment for the laboratories goes my information is that they have been very generous; that valuable and useful new equipment has been obtained. But that is not the same as bricks and mortar, which are still in short supply. And it is there that the difficulty has lain. I think nowhere is the technical population of the universities more than about 10 per cent. of the whole—that is, excluding the medical faculties and faculties of that kind, which might possibly qualify as "technical." That means to say that we could double the 11,000 technological students who are already there, and bring the total up to the same sort of numbers that exist in Germany, without, as I think your Lordships will agree, disturbing the balance of the universities, because nobody could say that some 20 per cent. or so of technological scientists in a university would destroy the balance as against the arts, and lawyers and the like.

LORD CHERWELL

The noble Lord has misunderstood me. You could, of course, put 20 per cent. of technological students into each university without throwing it out of balance. But, if you were to put in the staff and the equipment necessary to train them to be all-round technologists, it would cost far too much for the 300 or 400 trained men involved.

LORD CHORLEY

I think that the noble Viscount, Lord Falmouth, has shown that what we want, in the first place, is the fundamental sciences. It is then perfectly possible to specialise in one or more technologies at one particular university or another. The University Grants Committee, for example, have been building up in Leeds a most valuable textile technology department, which is one of the finest in the world. In other universities, in the same way, you can build up your specialised technology based on the training in fundamental sciences which is already going on there —as indeed the University Grants Committee have done and are doing at the present time.

LORD CHERWELL

That means that you will get a specialist technologist instead of having a general technologist who knows about all the various forms of technology and who, later, can specialise or not as he likes. Abroad, people move from one university to another, and it might be feasible to have each technology in its own university. But in England, where people do not move from one university to another, a man would have to make up his mind before he went to a university in which technology he was going to specialise. A specialist technologist is not so good as a technologist with broad general knowledge.

LORD CHORLEY

There would be an easier way of getting over that difficulty which, to my mind, is a very real one, by making arrangements for the student to be able to move on in the same way as abroad, which could be done more easily than by developing some new large technological institute of the Zurich type.

I felt that the noble Viscount, Lord Falmouth, put his finger on the real reason why progress has not been made in this country to the extent that one would like when he said that it was a financial problem. Until Sir John Anderson went to the Treasury, the needs of the country, from the university point of view, were not realised, and although a good deal of progress has been made since then, through the University Grants Committee, as I have pointed out, the great difficulties in respect of capital development during recent years have prevented maximum progress. But the Report which we are discussing this evening fails to deal with any of these essential problems. It is not a Report on the future development of higher technological education at all; it is a Report which deals almost entirely with the setting up of some new organisation which is to award diplomas to some of the technical colleges in the country. It really tells a lie about itself on its very first page. The real problem is how to expand the technological departments in the universities. The real issue is between doing that and setting up new technological institutes of the type which Lord Cherwell has advocated.

LORD CHERWELL

We want both.

LORD CHORLEY

Or both. That problem is not faced. Obviously the work cannot be done in any substantial way (everybody who knows anything about this matter is agreed on this point), by building up the technical colleges which exist in the large provincial towns up and down the country. My Lords, these technical institutes are absolutely on the periphery of this problem, and to devote a whole Report to skating round on the periphery in this way seems to me to make a laughing-stock of the whole problem.

As Lord Falmouth has very cogently pointed out, the job of the technical colleges is to provide the technicians. Undoubtedly, the technical colleges have been starved. Lord Calverley is absolutely right about that. They have been starved. They should be given much larger financial resources for the purpose of providing the technicians, who are just as essential as the technologists. In his own way the non-commissioned officer is just as important as the commissioned officer. To-day we are dealing with the commissioned officers, the technologists, and not with the technicians. By all means, in some of the larger technical colleges, let us have arrangements for some sort of technological education. Just as many valuable commissioned officers in the Army are obtained from the ranks of the non-commissioned officers, so inevitably there will be late developers, and people who, for one reason or another, are not able to get to the universities, but who will undoubtedly make progress in the technical colleges in the provincial towns. By all means make arrangements that those people shall not be lost, and that they may be given the necessary education and training. But, my Lords, do not let us disperse the really important effort that we must make to get our technology on to a proper basis, by focusing attention on these provincial technical colleges and spreading out too thinly some of our scarce financial resources and scarce capital equipment in building up new laboratories for these local technical colleges. Do not let us disperse the effort all over the country in a way which will undoubtedly be disastrous to the whole future of technology.

The Report recognises the importance of further equipment. On page 19 your Lordships will find that that matter is very clearly dealt with. But equipment becomes more and more expensive, more and more complicated; and that means that it is more and more important that it should be concentrated in the great technological departments at the universities or in the new technological institutes, if that is the policy which is decided upon. We do not want to have inadequate equipment spread all over the country, in order that one local authority will feel that it is being fairly treated as against some other local authority; the national interest being sacrificed to the local interest.

As Lord Falmouth hinted, there is really nothing in this Report about the teaching staff, a problem which is even more important than the equipment and the laboratories. The number of men who are qualified and competent to teach at the sort of level which is required is very small, and to spread what material you have got over all these institutes in these provincial towns would be a thoroughly mistaken, indeed a disastrous, policy. To send men of ability in twos and threes, in dribs and drabs, into these cities, where they will be isolated from the main mass of their profession, where instead of fertile exchanges of ideas with their colleagues, such as take place in the university faculties, they will be absolutely cut off, would be altogether wrong, and he would be an exceptional man who would be able to continue his own educational development in such surroundings. I am sure that these are matters of the greatest importance. Then there is the question of whether this development shall be carried out under the encouragement and guidance of the University Grants Committee, who understand about these things, or whether it shall be carried out under the control and guidance of the Ministry of Education who, with all respect, are not really qualified to handle a problem of this kind.

Finally—and this is one of the most extraordinary statements in the whole Report—in about half a line at page 19 the Council say that the technical colleges are able to perform the task of post-graduate and advanced work equally with the universities. I think that all I need say about that statement is that it is rubbish. The names of the ladies and gentlemen whom the Minister of Education collected into this almost public meeting of a Council run into three pages, and it is obvious that they did not all write this Report. I should like to know which of them were, in fact, responsible for making statements of this kind, because when one finds a statement of that sort—that the necessary post-graduate and advanced work can be done in these technical colleges up and down the country equally with the universities— one begins to wonder whether one can place any sort of reliance at all upon any part of the Report. On the last occasion I remember that Lord Caldecote said, that the real importance of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was its post-graduate work; and it is just there that you require the highest qualifications, the best teaching and the best equipment which is available. It is obvious that neither the best teaching nor the best equipment is going to be available in these provincial technical colleges.

My Lords, I come back to where I started. This problem is one of vital importance to the interests of this country, and it is absolutely urgent that it should be dealt with and solved at once. I hope that the Government will come to a decision upon it quickly, and in the sense of the overwhelming opinion that has been revealed in this debate.

7.9 p.m

LORD BURDEN

My Lords, I hope at the beginning of my reply I may be pardoned for making a personal reference. But for the untimely passing of Lord Darwen I should not be dealing with this problem this evening. I am sure that everyone will agree that, with the passing of Lord Darwen, this House has sustained a very grievous loss. The late Lord Darwen's quiet sincerity and, if I may say so, his deep religious convictions, made a profound impression on everyone who had the honour of his acquaintance. To Lady Darwen and his family our sympathies go forth. He will be grievously missed here by us all. The second personal note I would like to strike is this. It is the first time I have had the privilege and responsibility of replying to a debate. When I had the honour of being given a place in this noble House, a friend of mine, a great public man, wrote to me a letter which contained this sentence: "If you sit quiet and listen you will hear experts voicing their opinions on practically every subject under the sun." Surely, that has been proved true. This afternoon we have had experts putting before us their detailed knowledge of this complex problem. At this late hour, even if I were competent, I could not hope to answer adequately one tithe of the points which have been made. Indeed, if I may say so to Lord Calverley, my only qualification—and it is a very minor one—for dealing with this problem is that for more than twenty years I was a member of the education committee of a not unimportant county borough, and included in that period was a time when I was chairman of the board of governors of a highly successful technical college. We all have our bias, and perhaps that will help to explain some of my bias to-day.

When higher technological education was last discussed in your Lordships' House, nearly a year ago, of necessity the reply made on behalf of the Government was, in the main, to the effect that the National Advisory Council on Education for Industry and Commerce was considering the problem. The Council have now published their recommendations, and the Minister has expressed the hope that the Report will be closely studied—it obviously has been in certain quarters—and, further, he has said that he will consider any comments made to him, before coming to any decision on the Council's recommendations. My right honourable friend, therefore, welcomes this further debate, and I need hardly assure your Lordships that he will give most careful consideration to the comments and suggestions which have been made to-day. In these circumstances, it is, of course, not yet possible for a definite statement to be made as to policy. The Minister will, I am sure, be very grateful for all the valuable comments that have been made, and his decisions will be announced at the earliest possible moment. This evening, however, I hope I may be allowed to comment on some of the points which have been raised; but while I will do my best to be helpful to those who are considering important questions raised in the Report, I am certainly not in a position to make a definite statement of the Government's policy.

Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to indicate what is the sphere of higher technology dealt with in the Report of the Advisory Council, or, perhaps, in more practical terms, who are the higher technologists. The National Advisory Council define courses in higher technology as courses which, at the minimum, lead to a standard equivalent to a first degree of a university or are accepted by the major professional institutions as satisfying their educational requirements for corporate membership. Incidentally, any such definition covers pretty well any definition which is likely to be suggested in terms of particular techniques or particular professions so far as it is a question of defining the educational courses which they need to follow. There is no need for me to express my sincere agreement with all that has been said as to the essential part which higher technology must play in all industrial progress. It is absolutely vital for the best use to be made of this contribution if, at the same time, we are also to make full and proper use of the contribution of our craftsmen and technicians as well as that of research workers and pure scientists. I can say at once that the Government fully agree that any policy for higher technological education must be part of a comprehensive policy dealing not only with technical colleges but also with the universities. For that reason, I do not complain that the debate has ranged over wider issues than the Report of the National Advisory Council, taken in its strict and limited sense.

Though my comments must be limited to the sphere of the Report, I can assure your Lordships that there will be no piecemeal decisions. Clearly, the Minister must review the whole field. I am glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, who opened the debate, and other noble Lords, have recognised the wide range of excellent provision which is already in existence for the education of higher technologists. I do not wish to suggest that all is well; that there is any ground for complacency. But those concerned with the education for higher technologists are not falling down on the job. This excellent work has been and is being conducted partly in universities and partly in technical colleges. It will, I think, be generally accepted that the aim should be to continue and improve work in both spheres. It is the Government's view that there is no single solution to the whole range of problems which have to be dealt with.

There is a remarkable passage in the Report of the National Advisory Council which I will venture to read to your Lordships. It is as follows: The country needs hands and brains trained in different ways to fill the varied technological posts in the spheres of production, invention, design, research and arrangement. There is no single road leading to the highest technological posts in any industry, and if industry were to select for these posts only those individuals trained in one type of institution, there is no guarantee that such selection would secure the best technologists from the whole field available. May I repeat that there should be "no single road. "Clearly, however, the universities have a leading part to play with provision both for graduate and post-graduate work, and both for students entering universities in the ordinary way after full-time schooling and for those exceptional persons who make their way to universities after a spell in industry. It may seem superfluous to make this point, but in view of what I propose to say about technical colleges I must, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, emphasise the position of the universities. Desirable as it may be to expand or improve the facilities for higher technological education in the technical colleges, we must look to the universities to play an increasing part in providing the country with first-rate technologists on both the research and production sides. The technological faculties in the universities have already more than twice as many students as before the war. It is not for me to say if it is possible for further effective increase to be carried out.

Having paid my tribute, and it is a sincere tribute, to the work of the universities, may I be allowed, perhaps with some emphasis, to state the reasons why we must look to the technical colleges also for an important contribution to higher technological education? The Government fully endorse the views in the Report in the passage which I have already quoted, that there should be no single road leading to the highest technological posts in industry. It is for this reason that everything possible should be done to sustain the technical colleges and help them to take their share more fully and effectively in this vital work. Whatever may be the final and detailed decisions, everyone must be grateful to the Advisory Council for the thoroughness with which they have considered all the factors bearing on this problem.

It cannot be too strongly emphasised that by continuing to look to the technical colleges and by seeking to improve the conditions under which they can contribute to higher technological education, we should be proceeding on the basis of existing provision and, of equal importance, by the evolutionary methods to which we in this country are accustomed. This was the attitude of the National Advisory Council, and its seems to me a reasonable one. There is another very important consideration to be borne in mind. In this country we believe in giving every young person in industry the opportunity, if he has it in him, to rise to the top, and, as we know, some of our leading industrialists have travelled this arduous path. It is arduous, since it involves part-time study very often mainly at night while earning a living in the day-time. There are many who get no further than the skilled grades. There are others who qualify as technicians. A few, however, go further and become professional technologists and the like. These have not only acquired considerable scientific and technological knowledge, but also a thorough knowledge of industry and of the men working in it. Above all, they have moulded their own characters by their hard work and perseverance. Admittedly this is only one avenue, but when we remember that more than 4,000 students a year acquire their Higher National Certificates by this method, and a considerable proportion of these eventually become corporate members of a professional institution, we realise that the avenue is an important one in the training of technologists. Let me add that this great contribution to industry is due to the technical colleges. I am sure that even those who stress most strongly the importance of the university contribution, or who, like the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, suggest institutions of, I will not say novel, but of a new type, do not seriously wish to cut this work off from the tradition and main stream of development in the technical colleges.

Some of those who accept the importance of the contribution to be made by technical colleges go on to argue, not unreasonably, that it is quite impossible to carry out serious work in advanced technology spread over so many colleges as is the present practice. It should be concentrated, it is said, in a small number of colleges to which a special status should be given. Clearly there is something to be said for this, and the policy of organising technical colleges so that they come to specialise more fully on specific types and levels of work is one to which the Minister of Education and the major local education authorities are thoroughly committed. But it is necessarily a slow process, as we have to provide not only for the higher work itself, but also for other work which, in most cases, will be displaced by devoting the whole of an existing college to higher technological work only. The concentration of this higher work in a really small number of colleges would also in many instances make it impossible to carry on advanced work in the place where the relevant industry is situated. The objections to such a separation are obvious. On the other hand, the pro- posals in the Report for the approval and upgrading of specific courses, rather than of specific colleges, provides a policy to which effect can be given at once, but which is by no means inconsistent with a gradual and limited policy of concentration. When decisions come to be taken this very important consideration will be taken into account.

LORD CHERWELL

My Lords, the noble Lord has referred to institutions of a new kind. Does the Minister object to them or does he consider them a likely development?

LORD BURDEN

I can assure the noble Lord that what he has so cogently said this afternoon will be considered most carefully by my right honourable friend the Minister of Education before his final decisions are reached. Obviously, the noble Lord cannot expect me to go further than that this afternoon.

The kind of criticism to which I have been referring is often closely linked with the view that higher technological work can never flourish in institutions maintained by local education authorities. They need, it is suggested, a different kind of independence and a different kind of financial support. Now, I should never claim that the existing set-up is perfect in every detail. I do claim that it has many merits and that it provides opportunities for important and useful improvements. Some local authorities, for example, are developing methods of government for major technical colleges, particularly on the academic side, which go a long way to meet criticisms of the kind that I have mentioned. It may be the Report is right in suggesting that the Minister should provide more generous financial assistance for courses in advanced technology. I am not, of course, necessarily accepting that view at this stage, but I am claiming that progress is more likely to be secured by looking for opportunities of this kind for improvements and developments rather than by seeking for some altogether new approach. There is also very strong evidence for the view that a great advantage is to be derived from carrying on our technological work in colleges for which a local authority, in close association with local industry, takes full responsibility and in which it can feel a proper pride. There is also the really remarkable development that has already taken place in technical colleges and polytechnics which are either fully maintained by local authorities or look to them for the greater part of their finance. As mentioned in Appendix B of the Report itself, in 1948 over 7,000 students of the technical colleges were undertaking university degree work, either external or internal, on a full-time basis, and nearly 9,800 on a part-time day basis, quite apart from the large number taking university degree courses by means of part-time evening study. On the post-graduate and research side, information obtained from 31 technical colleges throughout the country shows that in the period 1945–49, 196 original research papers in technology were published by students or staff; and 218 higher degrees were obtained, including 8 D.Sc.'s, 52 Ph.D.'s, and 153 M.Sc.'s. The figures for 1949 show that university full-time students in technical colleges numbered 872, and part-time students in technical colleges, 11,295.

The noble Viscount who opened the debate referred specially to the recommendations in the Report for a Royal College of Technologists and, in particular, to the title which the Report suggests should be given to the awards by the Royal College. The views expressed on these points in the debate, and by other bodies which have made representations, will certainly be carefully considered by the Minister before any decision is reached. They are matters of detail, though very important detail, on which there is plenty of room for difference of opinion and where it is particularly important that there should be opportunities for discussion and consultation so as to reach the greatest possible measure of agreement and to remove so far as possible any causes of misunderstanding. It is certainly the Minister's intention to seek such opportunities. But there is one general comment which I might make at this stage as a general background to the consideration of this part of the proposals in the Report. Whatever may be felt about its precise proposals, it seems to me that the Council were right to raise this question of awards, and therefore the question of the functions of the award-making body. The arguments are fully set out in the Report itself with its reference to the fact that there is no award at present in fields of technology outside the scope of the London external degree, and that there are no means of certifying post-graduate courses except for research. In the opinion of my right honourable friend, the Report is quite right in linking closely, as it does, the need for developing new courses with a new status and the need for a new system of awards properly expressing that status. There is no dodging this issue, though it is always easy to raise objections to any new system of awards that have still to prove themselves and to establish their right to a standing equivalent to, but different from, existing awards.

May I refer briefly again to the definition of higher technological education which I mentioned in passing at the opening of my remarks? Perhaps the noble Viscount who opened the debate may not be altogether happy at a definition given solely in terms of educational courses, but I feel sure that we should raise more difficulties than we should solve if we were to attempt to define more closely, not the courses, but the technologists with which we are concerned, whether in terms of their origins or of the work which they might be seeking to take up. All the same, it might help if I were perhaps to add that, as I understand it, many, but by no means all, people who have successfully completed the courses with which this Report is concerned are expected to go on after appropriate practical experience to seek membership of the great professional bodies. As I understand it, the Report does not suggest any changes which would, in effect, deprive these bodies of any of their present functions. Even if we are clear at to our definition in educational terms, I should not like to accept the view that the courses with which we are to-day concerned can, at all times and in all contexts, be so sharply distinguished from all other courses that they need to be provided within the framework of some entirely different organisation—different, that is, from universities on the one hand and, on the other, from the whole system of technical education in the sphere of the Minister of Education and the local education authorities. Whatever the Minister may eventually decide on the detailed recommendations of the Report, it is definitely not his intention that the special needs of advanced technological education to which it draws attention should be overlooked.

The Minister is extremely grateful to the members of the Advisory Council who, from their varied experience, have contributed to the careful and thorough presentation of its recommendations. He is grateful also to all those who have given him their comments, both before and after the publication of the Council's Report, not least to noble Lords who have spoken to-day. All these views will be most fully considered, and, where appropriate, there will be further consultation with the bodies concerned. The Minister cannot promise to please everybody, but he can at least promise that he will do his best to secure that all-round co-operation in working out practical proposals which is so necessary if they are to be fully effective. Finally, so far as is consistent with this principle, he will be seeking to reach his decisions as soon as possible, so that the necessary action can be taken to secure that further progress in the field of higher technological education which we all desire to secure. Whilst I have not been able to answer all the detailed points, I hope that the general approach which I have made to this debate will give all noble Lords the assurance that what has been said this afternoon will receive the fullest consideration at the hands of the Minister.

7.40 p.m

VISCOUNT CALDECOTE

My Lords, this debate has gone on much longer than I anticipated, and I will not say more than a few words. Perhaps the length of the debate is some indication of the interest felt in this subject. I had many hard looks from the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, during his most interesting speech, particularly when he -was talking of the degrees to be given in technical universities — to which, of course, I have no objection at all. The noble Lord, Lord Calverley, also gave me some hard looks when he was complaining that my suggestions would make the whole procedure too slow. I feel that I have been rather misunderstood there. The whole point is that we must go forward now with proposals for upgrading the selected technical colleges, which is the quickest way of getting on with the job. There may be other solutions which will help to solve the problem, such as the technical university urged by the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell. I do not rule that out at all, but I feel that it would take a very long time to mature. Other noble Lords have drawn attention to the difficulties of equipping and staffing such an institution.

I should like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Burden, who has replied so kindly and so fully. If the debate helps the Minister of Education to make a rapid decision on the policy which must be followed—the right one—and which will have a wide measure of agreement, then I feel that it will have served a useful purpose. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn