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Professor Baillie
Ruthven joined
Moray House in 1975 at a time of significant institutional change.
The previous period of teacher shortages had meant that the colleges
had been in a strong bargaining position vis a vis the SED when claims
for additional staffing and buildings were more likely than not to
be agreed to by the Department. However, because of falling birth rates
and curbs on public expenditure in the
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the early 1970s reductions in student numbers became inevitable.
The first evidence of impending change occurred in 1976 when the expectations
of students for obtaining jobs as readily as in previous years was
suddenly replaced by the prospect of unemployment. The annual round
of early summer term interviews between students and local education
authority staff brought into sharp relief the lack of jobs. This led
to the first of a series of student occupations at Moray House and
other colleges throughout the UK. Discussions held at national level
about the over capacity in the colleges of education were followed
by the publication of the government’s policy document: Teacher
Training from 1977 Onwards. The proposed scale of reductions in student
intakes called into question the survival of all ten colleges of education.
Difficult discussions ensued at college and national levels and between
staff representatives (for academic staff ALCES), college managements
and the SED. Local and national campaigns were organised in support
of the retention of all the colleges of education and this led to the
government initially backing down. Documents from Callendar Park’s
campaign and those associated with the occupations at Moray House are
lodged in the Moray House Archive.
At Moray House the implications of the government’s public expenditure
cuts, particularly on the staffing levels, were becoming apparent. The Board
of Governors after their meeting of 11/5/1976 issued a press statement highlighting
the problem. ‘Voluntary redundancy’ was minuted for the first
time in Governors’ papers in June 1977. By June 1978 the Board recorded
that the college had over 30 staff more than the SED’s imposed academic
staffing complement. Fortunately, a combination of staff volunteering to
take early retirement and the SED’s support for ‘School-Focussed
In-service’ meant that staffing was able to come into balance without
the need to resort to compulsory redundancies. However, further cuts were
again required in 1979/80.
With a Conservative government elected in 1979 the problem of over-capacity
was once again on the political agenda. It came as no surprise when the government
proposed in 1980 that Hamilton and Callendar Park Colleges of Education should
be closed. The future of Craiglockhart College in Edinburgh was also subject
to intense discussions, with the Catholic Church finally agreeing to the
merger of Craiglockhart and Notre Dame Roman Catholic Colleges of Education
and the creation of St Andrews College of Education at Bearsden. Following
the retirement of Professor Ruthven in 1981, his successor, Gordon
Kirk,
was immediately faced with having to make arrangements for the incorporation
of Callendar Park College of Education with Moray House.
The contraction of Moray House during this period is clear from its student
numbers: in 1975/6 the College had a total of 2,707 students; by 1983/4 this
had fallen by nearly 60% to 1,121.
Additional mergers remained on the political agenda and in 1986 the Secretary
of State for Scotland announced that ‘the training of physical education
teachers, both men and women, will be centralised on the site of the present
Dunfermline College of Physical Education at Cramond. Dunfermline
College was then merged with Moray House creating an enlarged College in
1987 with a single new Board of Governors.
[In 2001 Moray House’s former Cramond Campus was closed by the University
of Edinburgh and its courses and facilities relocated to a refurbished St
Leonard’s Land at Holyrood - pictured below.]
St Leonard's
Land 2001
The consolidation of the colleges of education was only one aspect of the
changes in Scottish higher education occurring at this time. At the start
of the 1980s there were three main sectors: the universities, the central
institutions and the colleges of education. Only the last two sectors were
funded directly by the Scottish Office. In 1988 there were 25 higher education
institutions in Scotland but by 2000/1 consolidation had led to the creation
of a largely university-based system of
higher education in Scotland.
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on to Part 8
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or read more about Baillie Ruthven and Gordon Kirk
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or read more about Callendar Park College of Education
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or read more about Dunfermline College of Physical Education
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