Council for National Academic Awards

The Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) was a degree-awarding authority in the United Kingdom from 1965 until its dissolution on April 20, 1993.[1]

The establishment followed the recommendation of the Committee on Higher Education (Robbins Committee), which recommended amongst other things that the diploma awarding National Council for Technological Awards be replaced with a degree awarding council. Colleges now had more flexibility as they could devise their own courses with the oversight of the council rather than depend on existing universities to accredit courses. In 1974 the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design was merged into the CNAA

Qualifications included diplomas, bachelors, masters, and doctorate research degrees; by the time of dissolution it gave over 1.3 million degrees and other academic awards.[2] The CNAA awarded academic degrees at polytechnics, central institutions and other non-university institutions such as colleges of higher education until they were awarded university status. When the CNAA was wound up the British government asked the Open University to continue the work of awarding degrees in non-university institutions. Additionally, the university has responsibility for CNAA records.

The CNAA, through its many subject panels, oversaw the degree-awarding powers of polytechnics. Above all, the CNAA saw itself as preserving a comparability with degree level awards in universities, a feature which can be seen as having both positive and negative aspects: positive in that it preserved a formal "parity of esteem" between the awards of the two parts of the binary system (e.g., retaining the common currency of the undergraduate degree for entry to postgraduate study); but other scholars[3] viewed it as negative because it encouraged an "academicism" in the new sector and slowed an acceptance of the transformations required finally to break the boundaries of the old, "elite" system. In the event, the polytechnics were associated with many innovations, including women’s studies, the academic study of communications and media, sandwich degrees, advanced engineering, and the rise of management and business studies; not least, they were much more responsive than older institutions in providing for the admission of non-standard students.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Education (Dissolution of the Council for National Academic Awards) Order 1993
  2. ↑ World Education News And Reviews, Fall 1992, Vol. 5 / No. 4
  3. ↑ Pratt, 1997.

External links

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