Postgraduate Students (Awards) (Hansard, 2 February 1968)

§ Mr. Gordon Walker

I am considering a suggestion that responsibility for making such awards should, in all cases, rest with the central Government. A letter in the following terms has been sent to interested organisations seeking their views.

Dear Sir,

Transfer of Responsibility for Postgraduate Awards from L.E.A.s in England and Wales to the Central Government

At present awards to postgraduate students from public funds are made by various Departments, including the Department of Education and Science and the Scottish Education Department, as well as by Research Councils and local education authorities in England and Wales. Since early 1964 local education authorities have not been expected to make awards in those fields of study that fall within the purview of one or other of the central Government agencies. They have been expected to restrict their awards to students on vocational courses; but their power to make postgraduate awards in other fields has never been removed. The present division of responsibility is causing increasing difficulty to applicants, to academic authorities and to award-making bodies and gives rise to a substantial volume of complaints. We have therefore been considering whether it might be possible to simplify and rationalise the allocation of awards for postgraduate study.

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In 1966, at the Annual Conference of the Association of Education Committees, a resolution was passed calling upon the Department of Education and Science to assume full responsibility for awards for postgraduate study apart from those studies of a strictly vocational nature. This was brought to the attention of the Secretary of State and led to discussions with all the local authority associations concerned. These discussions have shown that the associations would not be unfavourable to the transfer to central Government departments and agencies of responsibility for making all postgraduate awards from public funds. A step of this magnitude would not be taken without the fullest consultation, and I am therefore writing to seek your views on it.

I should perhaps make it clear that this letter is not concerned with the total number of postgraduate awards made from public funds, which is quite a separate matter. It is simply concerned with the most efficient and economical way of administering them.

It would be premature to consider in any detail the machinery which the central Government might employ to administer awards at present made by local education authorities until it was clear that the fundamental idea was acceptable in principle. It is however envisaged that any administrative arrangements devised for this purpose would incorporate an independent advisory body of members of academic staffs, which is a feature of existing central Government schemes.

We should be pleased to receive your views on the principle of the suggested transfer of responsibility and any suggestions you might wish to make about possible future central Government awards-making machinery for students on postgraduate vocational courses. We should be grateful if you could reply not later than Easter, 1968.

Yours faithfully,

R. TOOMEY.