M.V. So, Paul can you tell me just about, about yourself?
P.M.My name’s Paul Mason. I was born in November
1948 in Chorley Lancashire. . My career began in teaching in comprehensive
schools. I was head of the art and design department in a comprehensive
school and the education that I had to qualify me for that was Cert. Ed.
from a College of Higher Education. I worked in schools for seven and
a half years and all the time that I was doing that I was making applications
for foundation course jobs and when I went into that I decided that the
one thing that was letting me down was that I didn’t have a specialist
degree from an art college. So at the age of twenty nine I made the decision
to resign from my job, I managed to persuade the local authority, Lancashire
authority, that they would agree to pay the second two years’ of my college
course if I were to pay the first one and, I managed to get accepted to
Manchester and I went there.
M.V. Manchester what?
P.M. Manchester Metropolitan University, and Manchester Polytechnic
as it was when I went there. It was in the late ‘70s. After
I’d had a career in school teaching that was a big change and it was a
real liberating experience as you can probably well imagine.
M.V. Were there many other mature students there at all?
P.M. There were several and I found out that it is the policy of the
college. To find as many mature people as possible ‘cause it’s good for
group chemistry to have a wide age range.
M.V. What proportion now, on a foundation course, of mature students
do you have?
P.M. Probably about ten percent but it does vary from year to year and
then we encourage people on other courses in the college to come and see
what we’re doing so that there is some interest there to take it up.
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