Higher Education

Abstract

Given that the 1944 Education Act legislated secondary education for all, the most general term for all education beyond school is post-secondary. The Robbins Report on Higher Education, which appeared in 1963, was a landmark in the definition of higher education. But the underlying framework for interpreting the trends is the shape and pace of movement towards universal post-secondary education. Various phrases are used in the literature to describe different kinds of post-school education including higher education, further education, and adult education. There are no absolute clear dividing lines between institutions, and this chapter refers mainly to statistics on the universities, and to statistics on advanced courses in further education. Statistics on universities for Great Britain and Northern Ireland are published in a convenient form from 1966 (Volume VI, Statistics of Education, and for recent years by the University Grants Committee (UGC) as University Statistics). This form of publication took the place of the University Grants Committee’s Returns from Universities and University Colleges which were previously published in command paper form up to and including the statistics for 1965–6 (Cmnd 3586). There are also useful publications by the Universities’ Central Council on Admissions (UCCA) and the University Statistical Service.