A polytechnic was a tertiary education teaching institution in England, Wales [1] and Northern Ireland offering higher diplomas, undergraduate degree and postgraduate education (masters and PhD) that was governed and administered at the national level by the Council for National Academic Awards. At the outset, the focus of polytechnics was on STEM subjects, with a special emphasis on engineering. After the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 they became independent universities, which meant they could award their own degrees. The comparable institutions in Scotland were collectively referred to as Central Institutions.
Like polytechnics or technological universities (institute of technology) in other countries, their aim was to teach both purely academic and professional vocational degrees (engineering, computer science, law, architecture, management, business, accounting, journalism, town planning, etc.). Their original focus was applied education for professional work, and their original roots concentrated on advanced engineering and applied science (STEM subjects); though soon after being founded they also created departments concerned with the humanities. The polytechnic legacy was to advance and excel in undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in engineering and technology (STEM) education that now form a core faculty at many universities in the UK. While many former polytechnics have advanced their research focus, many have retained their original ethos by focusing on teaching for professional practice.
The term 'poly' is used informally for pre-1992 polytechnics.[2]
The London Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) emerged from the Royal Polytechnic Institution which was founded at Regent Street, London in 1838. The establishment of the polytechnic was a reaction to the rise of industrial power and technical education in France, Germany and the US.[3] Degrees at the London Polytechnic were validated by the University of London.
Most polytechnics were formed in the expansion of higher education in the 1960s. Academic degrees in polytechnics were validated by the UK Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) from 1965 to 1992. The division between universities and polytechnics was known as the binary divide in UK higher education.[4] The CNAA was chartered by the British government to validate and award degrees, and to maintain national quality assurance standards. The CNAA subject boards from their inception were from the universities; a CNAA degree was formally recognised as equivalent to a university degree, and the courses were under strict scrutiny by assessors external to the polytechnics.[5] Sub-degree courses at these institutions were validated by the Business & Technology Education Council (BTEC).
Some polytechnics were often seen as ranking below universities in the provision of higher education, because they lacked degree-awarding powers, concentrated on applied science and engineering education, and produced less research than the universities, and because the qualifications necessary to gain a place in one were sometimes lower than for a university (the failure rate in the first year of undergraduate courses was high, due to a rigorous filtering process). However, in terms of an undergraduate education, this was a misconception, since many polytechnics offered academic degrees validated by the CNAA, from bachelor's and master's degrees to PhD research degrees.[6] In addition, professional degrees in subjects such as engineering, town planning, law, and architecture were rigorously validated by various professional institutions. Many polytechnics argued that a CNAA degree was superior to many university degrees, especially in engineering, due to the external independent validation process employed by the CNAA, the oversight of the engineering institutions, and innovations such as sandwich degrees.[7] Such innovations made a polytechnic education more relevant for professional work in applying science and advanced technology in industry.[3] [8]
Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 they became fully fledged universities. After 1992, the former polytechnics ("new universities") awarded their own degrees.
In England, there are:
In addition, Wales has
and Northern Ireland has:
In Scotland there were comparable Higher Education institutions called Central Institutions but these very rarely used the designation "Polytechnic" in their titles; these also converted into universities.