ABSTRACT
All of the issues involved in the development of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) as an element in the shaping of the new sector were present in some form in countries also developing 'alternative' sectors of higher education. The CNAA had come a long way since 1964: 'from being a shy bureaucracy it has become an important and an innovatory force in higher education'. The Times Higher Education Supplement began an editorial on the CNAA in 1972 with the statement: 'The Council for National Academic Awards must be one of the few unqualified success stories in higher education in the past eight years — sharing that honour perhaps with the Open University'. Although the CNAA system had been in operation since 1964, 'it is only recently that it has made almost total inroads as far as the central, advanced colleges of technology in Scotland are concerned'.
