41.2 The Evolving Nature of Universities
and Higher Education
It was not always the case that universities should attach so much importance to a
tradition of research. John Henry Newman’s classic text,The Idea of a New
University,argued that university is‘a place of teaching universal knowledge’, and
its objects are intellectual—the‘diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than
the advancement’. There is an inheritance of knowing, reasoning, appreciating,
which needs to be preserved and passed on to future generations. Scholarship is, of
course, essential to such a preservation of that inheritance, but systematic research
as presently understood (particularly in the need for research grants) found no place
in Newman’s university.
Furthermore,‘professional learning’(such as the preparation of teachers based
on a core of knowledge) also was notable for its absence. Indeed, John Stuart Mill,
at his inaugural lecture at St Andrews University in 1867, agreed that universities
should not be places of professional education as
their object is not to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and
cultivated human beings [for] what professional men should carry away with them from an
university is not professional knowledge, but that which should direct the use of their
professional knowledge, and bring the light of general culture to illuminate the technical-
ities of a special pursuit. (Mill 1867 , p. 133)Such a clear distinction, on the one hand, between teaching and research, and, on
the other, between universities so conceived and professional preparation, affected
profoundly what was regarded as the best preparation and continuing professional
development of teachers for the best part of a century. Teacher training took place
in‘training colleges’, only marginally connected with the university system. That
historical context provides the backcloth to the more recent evolution,first, of the
place of such professional development in universities, and, second, of the nature of
the research, mainly university based, into education and into the professional
development of teachers.
In England in 1963, the major Robbins Report into Higher Education in effect
challenged the rather elitist and exclusive nature of the university system, arguing,
first, for much wider access, and, second, for a greater sense of relevance to the
country’s needs. Furthermore, it called for a unitary system of higher education, one
which would elevate and include the many training colleges which focused on the
training of teachers in two year courses. However, it took some years before such a
unitary system was achieved,first, through Colleges of Advanced Technology and
Polytechnics becoming universities, and, second, through Training Colleges (more
recently called Colleges of Education) merging with existing universities or grad-
ually evolving into universities.
610 R. Pring