ABSTRACT
A glance towards the historical roots of The Co-operative College, established in 1919, offers some insight into how contemporary under - standings of ‘co-operative education’ have been shaped by the creation of a dedicated educational institution for co-operators all over the world. In its early days, the college concerned itself with developing a system - atic structure for managing curricula, materials and resources as an on-going source of support to a wide range of co-operatively managed groups. This model of educational organization was subse quently adopted and adapted where necessary on an international scale (Shaw, 2009). A significant number of European and international models of co-operative schooling have evolved since this time. For example, there are 600 co-operative schools in Spain, employing nearly 20,000 teachers today (Webster et al., 2011). However, in the UK, as compulsory state educational provision became firmly estab lished, the co-operative movement’s involvement with primary and secondary schools gradually declined and it focused the majority of its resources on co-operative training for adults (Facer et al., 2012). From its early days to the 1990s The Co-operative College’s influence remained at the margins of tra - ditional forms of state educational provision. There fore, it focused its efforts towards the provision of resi dential training courses and higher education in specialized subjects, alongside investiga tion and research, which remained a focal point for ‘cultivating the co-operative spirit’ (Shaw, 2009). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the college returned to its former location at Holyoake House in Manchester where
an extensive review of its activities coincided with an era of profound educational policy change. More over, as a new educational landscape was beginning to emerge, a unique opportunity for the co-operative movement to become involved in the provision of public education presented itself on an unprecedented scale.
