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University of Roehampton: Calling all teachers holding Certificates of Education

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In a brilliant initiative the University of Roehampton, which was formed out of an amalgamation of the four Colleges for Teacher Education Digby Stuart, Froebel, Southlands and Whitelands Colleges, has decided to award all traceable holders of Certificates in Education awarded before 1980, with an Honorary Degree. The application procedure is explained here and applications need to be submitted by Friday 24th March. If you know of anyone who may qualify, please pass the following details onto them.

Roehampton University 2 

 

Announcement

On 15th May 2017 the University of Roehampton is hosting an Honorary Degree Ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall. All former students from Digby Stuart, Froebel, Southlands and Whitelands Colleges, who were awarded a Certificate in Education before 1980, are invited to receive an Honorary Degree in recognition of the work required to gain this certificate and subsequent services to education.

Background
The Certificate of Education was a qualification required for non-degree holders to become teachers, but was phased out in the early 1980s when the law required all trainee teachers to train via Bachelor of Education degrees or another graduate qualification followed by a post-graduate course, in order to provide a higher professionalism with an improved status for teachers. Until then the Certificate in Education was the norm for primary school teachers, but was also earned by many secondary teachers as an alternative to a degree topped up by a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (I qualified without any training, becoming a teacher in the first year of England's first Sixth Form College at a time when there was a national shortage of mathematicians joining the profession, although I subsequently passed my Post Graduate Certificate).
 
Roehampton
The four Colleges of Education came together in 1975 to form the Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, which took university status in 2000. It still enjoys a strong reputation for education. This initiative is a powerful acknowledgement of the high quality of the original Certificate of Education that prepared the large majority of primary school teachers in this country.
 
Conclusion and Action
I have looked, but have not found any other University going down this route, but may simply have missed them.

I now know of six career teachers (including my wife who attended Whitelands from 1964-1967) who are all thrilled with this belated recognition of their service to education, and are also looking forward to a reunion on the day. The dual purpose of this article is both to encourage readers who know of other teachers or retired teachers entitled to the Honorary Degree, to be awarded at the Ceremony for the Conferment of Honorary Degrees at the Royal Festival Hall to make them aware of it, but also to commend the concept to other relevant institutions. 


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