ABSTRACT
During the Second World War British universities were faced with the beginnings of what was clearly an important 'struggle to maintain autonomy' amidst the pressures for responsiveness to wartime and postwar needs. During and after the Second World War there were currents of anxiety, reflected in Dent's visit, about Britain's failure to develop this kind of education, and about the adequacy of higher education in Britain to meet the demographic, economic and social demands of the post-war world. The particular thread of education in science and technology is crucial in the developments of the late 1950s and early 1960s which led to the creation of the Council for National Academic Awards and a 'non-university' sector within the emergent pattern of higher education. Until the 1960s 'higher education' meant the universities, although the phrase was not in common use.
