The UCL Institute of Education. From Training College to Global Institution

Abstract

This was a book I wanted to read, being alumni of the Institute of Education and the History of Education MA Course, which was a programme led by Richard Aldrich in the 1990s. Richard Aldrich was the original author of this book which Tom Woodin as coauthor has now revised and extended. I was taught by Aldrich, Dennis Dean and David Crook in the mid-1990s. Aldrich had also helped me with my successful ESRC Scholarship application which allowed me to progress to my PhD at Keele University (England) in 1994. Overall, I had a very good idea how rewarding Aldrich’s teaching, research and writing could be (Aldrich et al, 2000; Aldrich, 1982, 1988,1996, 2004; Crook and Aldrich, 2000; Gordon et al., 1991). The festschrift presented to Aldrich can also give the reader a better understanding of his reach and influence beyond his role as a respected domestic and international educational historian (Crook and McCulloch, 2007). The strengths of this UCL history are multiple, but I want to focus on three issues. Firstly, the book is more than an educational odyssey from training college to global institution as highlighted in the title. It is a book about the politics of education and how not only the early leaders of the London Day Training College like John Adams, Margaret Punnett and Percy Nunn navigated their own times, but how local and national policy issues can be underlined with more generic issues of accommodation and classroom resources. This became even more complicated as the need for teachers in both primary and an emerging secondary school sector grew in England in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1948, the Institute of Education was tasked with serving as the training body for the whole of the London area. Fred Clarke, G.B Jeffery, Lionel Elvin were all Directors of the Institute. Secondly, this book examines the relation between research and teaching. The development of funded research in the 1970s and 1980s: ‘ . . . further marked out the Institute as a unique institution among university departments of education . . . [This research focus] had few connections with the fundamental purpose of the London Day Training College and the Institute of earlier days – namely the initial training of teachers for London schools’ (178). On reflection, the contestation between teaching and research in higher education has been going on much longer than my twenty-five-year career but reading this book, I can see where and how long it has existed in the academy. I was advised by Pat Mahony that teaching informs research and research informs teaching within education which in turn makes the academic. However, that equation – although one I still advocate – seems naïve when reading this book, individual subjectivities, the evolving education market politics in England, let alone London, since 1979 and the division of the majority of academic contracts in higher education into teaching or research in the twenty-first century also have impact. It was important to read that Becky Francis as the first female Director in the 2010s, when promoting social justice: ‘ . . . attempted to incorporate research time into