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Object 11. Education - letter to Margaret Thatcher
1970-1973
Description:
As part of his role as a lecturer in UCL Raphael took an active interest in education policy, particularly the financing of higher education: during the 1970s it was proposed that University provision in the UK would expand. However many academics, including the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and principals, felt the budget was not sufficient, and thus there was no way to guarantee standards. In the early 1970s Raphael corresponded with Margaret Thatcher, his MP and the Secretary of State for Education about several issues, including the financing of student unions in 1972, the White Paper, ‘Education: A Framework for Expansion’, A-Level performance, admissions policy and drop-out rates. He invited her to a ‘working lunch’ on 16th September 1970 at UCL to discuss some of these issues.
The letter dated 2nd September 1970 lists the attendees and a suggested schedule for discussion, including a summing up which she later declines to do. His key concerns were: the central admissions procedure; the figures for 1980s student numbers; comparative drop-out rates between the arts and the sciences.
In July 1970 he produced an Aide Memoire and in September he summarised the discussion at the working lunch. When these issues came to light again in 1973, he refers her to these earlier documents.
Credits: Leopold Muller Memorial Library, Raphael Loewe Archive, shelfmark: pending cataloguing
