Introducing the Agricultural & Allied Education Sector .sx Richard Eve , NATFHE's first Agricultural Sector Officer , outlines the history and fills in the present picture .sx The setting-up of this new sector within NATFHE follows the affirmative vote by members of the Association of Agricultural Education Staffs to transfer their engagements as an independent trade union to NATFHE .sx This transfer took place on 4 September 1990 and was announced by our President , Judith Summers , at the joint NATFHE/AUT reception held at the TUC in Blackpool .sx The new sector was more formally launched at a recent reception in the Houses of Parliament , reported elsewhere in this issue .sx For those members of NATFHE who may know little about the Agricultural Education service the following brief history may be of interest .sx Before the second world war , responsibility for both education and advice to farmers and growers was shared by the Ministry of Agriculture and the County Councils .sx This was not mandatory , and there was no set pattern , so some counties had a Farm Institute providing a range of courses and an advisory service , while others had almost no provision at all .sx Generally speaking , there was least agricultural education in the rural counties most needing it , because they had the smallest populations and lowest incomes and could not afford it !sx .sx During the war , when food production was a priority , the agricultural advice service was uniformly expanded under the War Agricultural Executive Committees , and the success of this pointed towards its continuation after the war .sx In the sic !sx 1943 the Luxmoore Report on post-war Agricultural Education proposed a national council to oversee both the new advisory service and a new agricultural education system for the whole country , under central control .sx The proposal was never adopted , and in 1946 the Ministry of Agriculture set up the National Agricultural Advisory Service , thereby bringing about the divorce of advice from education and leaving the LEAs responsible for provision of agricultural education .sx As a result of this it was decided to bring the service into the Burnham procedure and so a meeting was held in May 1946 to elect a panel to represent the teachers' side on the Agricultural Education Panel of Burnham .sx It was led by J. Wickham Murray of the NUT , and A. E. Evans of the ATTI ( NATFHE's predecessor ) provided the secretariat .sx In order to consolidate the work and gains made by the Panel it was recognised that a representative body should be formed and , in December 1946 , a meeting was held to decide whether to join an existing organisation or go it alone .sx Messrs Wickham Murray and Evans expounded the virtues of joining ATTI but , despite some support and after a long debate , it was unanimously agreed to form a separate organisation .sx It was to be twenty years before a partnership with ATTI became a reality .sx A Committee was set up to draft rules and a constitution and it held its first meeting in January 1947 , with the first meeting of the Annual Conference being in April 1947 .sx The initial sub was 10/- per annum and at the end of the first year of operation the balance in hand was pounds22 .sx 11.1d - some 30% of the total income !sx ! This new organisation was to go from strength to strength and was equal to the many challenges and changes of the next forty or so years .sx New subjects , new involvements .sx There are 48 separate institutions in England and Wales and several departments of Agriculture linked to Further Education colleges .sx Most of these institutions provide residential courses of varying duration in Agriculture and allied subjects .sx The diversification that has taken place in recent years reflects the changes that have become apparent in the rural community .sx Whilst high tech animal production , crop technology and agricultural business management still feature as the mainstay of the service , the expansion has come fast in the various facets of horticulture , in equestrianism , forestry , floristry , viticulture , gamekeeping , fish farming , conservation , tourism , amenity park management and sports green keeping .sx Virtually all the establishments have large commercial farms and horticultural units .sx Some colleges have established themselves as regional or national centres for specialist areas of work , especially in the fields of horticulture , forestry and water management , and they have also developed commercial ventures which reflect these specialisms .sx The Sector has close links with the industry , and active participation in committee work at all levels is undertaken by lay members .sx Union issues .sx As the Sector becomes established within the main body of NATFHE , colleagues in other areas will realise that one of the issues which needs to be resolved is in the area of salaries and conditions of service .sx You may have noticed that there are separate scales published alongside mainstream scales and there are also separate conditions and these are used in almost all of the agricultural colleges .sx The claim for parity in conditions of service has been argued now for over ten years and , at its last conference in 1990 , the old AAES resolved to make parity of both salaries and conditions its policy .sx This matter is currently being addressed by the NJC in its Agricultural and Horticultural Working Party , but progress is slow - not through any lack of commitment on the part of the Lecturers' Side .sx Historically there were good reasons for the differences , but times have changed and the work of a lecturer in an agricultural college is just the same as the work done by a lecturer in a mainstream FE college , and this has now been true for a decade or more .sx It is a just claim which appears to fall on deaf ears .sx It would be easy to go on at length about this , but suffice to say the sector looks for support from colleagues across the service in the pursuance of this claim .sx So , NATFHE now has an Agricultural Education Sector , and the wishes of Wickham-Murray and A. E. Evans some 45 years ago are a reality .sx Professional co - operation and professional unity have always been embodied in the aims and objectives of the Association of Agricultural Education Staffs ; its members bring to NATFHE commitment to strive to continue with that aim towards professional unity .sx The new sector is a new chapter in a long and proud history .sx The Agricultural Education Service comprises a diversity of specialists brought together by the place in which they work and the section of the community which they serve .sx That such a sparsely spread group could bridge the barriers of both subject and geography to form the active negotiating body which the AAES has become is a direct reflection of the strength of character of both the early pioneers and those who have led the Association over the last 45 years .sx There is a great future ahead for us all , and members in the Sector will play a full and active part in NATFHE for a long time to come .sx IN EUROPE NOW .sx Europe is now firmly on NATFHE's agenda and all members' interests are affected , says Paul Bennett .sx ETUCE Working Group on HE .sx The Higher Education Working Group of the ETUCE ( European Trade Union Committee for Education ) is chaired by Peter Dawson of NATFHE and has established itself as an influential body within the European trade union scene and among those making policy for HE in Europe .sx It was set up in 1989 and represents HE teachers and researchers from 11 organisations in eight countries .sx NATFHE is represented by Paul Bennett , Head Office Official responsible for EC matters .sx The Group is able to build on the encouraging fact that HE is one of the most developed areas of collective EC policy in the education/training field .sx Predictably , perhaps , we have found that the tendency , familiar in UK official and other circles , to equate 'higher education' with universities is mirrored in the European Community , so we have to ensure that - in European policy-making too - the whole of HE is taken into account .sx The Group's first meeting of 1991 takes place in Amsterdam in February , hosted by the Dutch union ABOP .sx Last year , the Group held meetings in Berlin at the end of May , and in Brussels in October , following the ETUCE Colloquium on the European Dimension of Education and Teachers .sx The Higher Education Working Group made a significant response to the EC's medium-term guidelines for education , ( set out in these pages) .sx The group also sent representatives to important meetings with the European Trade Union Committee and European university rector's representatives and to a major conference of European university rectors in Siena in November .sx It is clear that the various bodies we have made contact with have welcomed the voice of European HE teachers , expressing their concerns .sx The machinery of the Community and other European policymaking bodies is complex and cumbersome , but the good news is that those bodies are open to a wide range of advice and consultation .sx It is becoming increasingly important to ensure that representative voices of teachers are heard in all these forums , as decisions are taken more and more at the level of the EC as well as - or even instead of - the national level .sx The ETUCE Executive Board has agreed a proposal , originally put forward by the Group , for a major colloquium on higher education and teacher education in Europe , to be held during the course of 1991 , and the February meeting of the Group will play a major part in planning that event .sx EC medium-term guidelines .sx In 1989 , the European Commission produced 'Education and Training in the European Community :sx Guidelines for the Medium Term 1989-1992' .sx This document was a milestone in the steady movement of education and training issues closer to centre stage of the EC's policy process , in the context of progress towards the Single European Market .sx It was also a timely acknowledgment of the importance of education and the wider social dimension in creating a Community which is of benefit to all its citizens - not just to big business .sx The Guidelines have generated a considerable debate within the Community , and the ETUCE and the European Trade Union Committee ( effectively , the 'European TUC' ) have enabled NATFHE to make a significant contribution to that debate .sx This has been achieved particularly through the ETUCE Higher Education Working Group .sx Euro-directive's implications for FHE .sx The European Community is accelerating its policies to promote the mobility of qualified workers within the Community , as part of the progress towards a Single European Market .sx In particular , this policy is now being pursued through general directives on the mutual recognition of qualifications .sx Following drawn-out and piecemeal discussions on individual professions in the '70s and early '80s , a new blanket approach was adopted in 1989 , with the adoption of the first general directive which applied to HE qualifications requiring three years or more of study , with regulations for qualifying periods or tests in individual professions .sx Now , a second directive , for qualifications requiring less than three years , is at an advanced stage .sx In the UK at least , this will apply to much more heterogeneous range of qualifications , and will have implications for both FE and HE .sx It will test the effectiveness of the examining and validating bodies and of NCVQ and SCOTVEC - and , since individual governments must interpret and implement the second directive , it will also test the commitment of ministers in the new post-Thatcher era to getting the most benefit from the EC for UK citizens .sx ETUC/ETUCE policy developments .sx During 1990 , NATFHE Officials , acting on behalf of the ETUCE , had the opportunity to play the major part in redrafting a memorandum first issued by the European Trade Union Committee in 1984 , on education and vocational training policy in Western Europe .sx This important document will form the basis for dialogue between the ETUC and a range of advisory and policymaking bodies in the EC , at a time when a variety of pressures are being mounted for the expansion of the limited education provisions of the Treaty of Rome to take account of the wider social role of the EC as the Single European Market develops .sx EVE The second edition of the very successful Education booklet , first published by the UK Centre for European Education in 1988 , is due this Spring .sx