Challenge, Response and Dilution: a revisionist view of the Emergency Training Scheme for Teachers, 1945‐1951

Abstract

Between 1945 and 1951 the Emergency Training Scheme produced around 35,000 teachers, selected mainly on the grounds of personality rather than paper qualifications and trained in just one year. Most of these teachers subsequently found posts in primary or secondary modern schools, where many enjoyed successful careers. Without this scheme, the raising of the school leaving age to 15 and the 1944 Education Act's promise of ‘secondary education for all’ would both have been greatly delayed. Of the published accounts of the scheme, most focus upon notions of ‘challenge’ and ‘response’, without confronting the important associated issue of professional dilution. Drawing upon a range of previously unused evidence, this paper offers a revisionist view.