ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the last days of the women’s college. We have seen in earlier chapters evidence that, by the 1950s, the corporate ethic and practice of the colleges were being undermined by changing social, and particularly sexual, mores. There was also growing concern nationally that the two-year course was not long enough to equip trainee teachers with sufficient academic knowledge and vocational skill to meet the demands of the post-war world. This concern had been forcefully stated in the influential McNair Report, published in 1944:

The course should be lengthened for three reasons. First, the schools need better educated men and women and this better education cannot be secured unless students are released from the strain and hurry which now conditions many of them. Secondly, students in general have not, by 20 years of age, reached a maturity equal to the responsibility of educating children and young people; and thirdly, we intend that a longer amount of time than at present should, during training, be devoted to contact with and teaching in schools.1