FACTUAL
The New Polytechnics
Thursday 7 September 2006 9:00-9:30 (Radio 4 FM)
Repeated: Thursday 7 September 2006 21:30-22:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Martha Kearney continues the series telling the story of how student life and our universities have been transformed by six decades of expansion. Sixty years ago, university was very much a minority pursuit, but today the government's stated aim is to get half of all young people into higher education.
A brief history of the Polytechnics, 30 new institutions created in the early 1970s. They were designed as different but equal to the universities. But did anyone really believe in that equality? Through the stories of those who taught and studied at the Polys, championed their existence and derided their shortcomings, Martha charts the development of a new form of Higher Education.
