ABSTRACT
Once, education was thought of as the key to creating a fa i r and more just society in Bri ta in . Disi l lusion set in some time ago. Public disenchantment, moulded in the main by school developments, in the 1970s infected a t t i tudes to education as a whole. Higher education ceased rapidly to be the sexy po l i t i c a l subject i t was in the mid-1960s. Those who c r i t i c i s ed lack of in te res t and a fa l l in p r io r i ty for higher education were castigated for special pleading.
