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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Vol. 32, No. 23. September 24, 1969

Non-Teacher School

Non-Teacher School

A fully automated college with students but no teachers has opened in Los Angeles, California.

Students go to school early in the morning, carry full class loads, do homework, take tests, and if they make the grades, eventually graduate, without ever seeing a teacher.

Each student is a class by himself, enrolling at any time, working alone and in silence, competing with no one and setting his own pace of progress.

This is possible because all instruction is programmed on tape. The faculty of the Automated Business College is a library of 420 tapes.

The one person with whom students have any kind of traditional campus relationship is the college's executive director, Jim Scott, who single-handedly runs the school. He establishes the curriculum, plans programs of study, corrects homework, counsels and grades students, and even helps them find jobs after graduation.

Enrolment now is small (15) but with present equipment the college can handle 40 students a day or more.

An average student can complete a standard secretarial or stenographic course in as little as 16 weeks, compared to 40 weeks in most traditional business schools. The clerk-typist course can be completed in as little as 14 weeks.

Taped lectures by experienced teachers are co-ordinated with standard textbooks and workbooks.