FE Teacher Professionalism and Quality in England's Further Education

Introduction

The need for high-quality education has never been greater, and there has been increasing attention in recent years concerning how further education can help achieve improved academic outcomes throughout the United Kingdom in general and England in particular. Over the past decade or so, a wide range of initiatives have been advanced to this end. For instance, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) emphasizes that, "Further education (FE) matters. It matters because so many learners use it and because they use it for so many reasons: for the love of learning; to learn new skills; to gain more qualifications; to equip themselves for higher education; or to improve their employability or chances of promotion" (2005, 1). Moreover, properly implemented and administered, further education stands to make a substantive difference in the connection between what is learned and how it is used — by providing all learners with appropriate opportunities and because the nation's private sector depends on further education to supply young learners with the skills and knowledge they need to compete effectively in the 21st century (Further education matters, 2005).

Despite the importance of effective further education in the United Kingdom today, a number of problems remain, many of which relate to the quality of educational services being delivered in further education colleges as well as the support and preparatory training being provided to further education teachers. More than four million learners are already enrolled in further education colleges of all sizes, including facilities with just a few students to major universities with enrollments of nearly 30,000 students (Further education matters, 2005). Furthermore, Midgley emphasizes that until fairly recently, "The teaching of adult literacy, numeracy and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) in further education colleges has been performed primarily by part-time teachers on short-term or agency contracts who had little in the way of career structure, job security or support from their colleges or senior managers" (2004:62).

Further education represents part of a continuum of initiatives undertaken by the UK government in recent years that is designed to expand learning opportunities for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. These initiatives have included, for example, the "Sure Start" program intended to improve the educational, health, and social development of young learners from less affluent families (Cheung & Anderson 2003). In addition, other initiatives such as the Peers Early Education Partnership program implemented in Oxfordshire have been introduced, wherein parents and children are encouraged to read together (Cheung & Anderson 2003). Parents can also enroll in a "learning bridge" program, funded by the Adult Basic Skills Fund, which provides them with the opportunity to pursue coursework in further education colleges. Yet another such initiative is the "Life Long Learning" program, which seeks to expand access in further and higher education and improve the level of adult literacy in the United Kingdom (Cheung & Anderson 2003). In addition, the Further Education Funding Council has taken steps to improve distance learning opportunities that offer the same coursework and outcomes provided by traditionally taught curricular offerings (Moran & Rumble 2004).

Beyond the foregoing initiatives, other efforts to improve access to educational resources include open-learning centres designed to improve the relevance of instructional material for learners. For example, Moran and Rumble note that, "Many colleges now have open-learning centres which provide flexible access to learning support. Increasingly, employers are also providing their own learning centres, sometimes assisted by their local further education (FE) college. The Employment Department has also been active in encouraging the development of open-learning centres in public libraries" (Moran & Rumble 2004, 122). Because resources are by definition scarce, it is vitally important that these educational initiatives provide learners with the best possible academic outcomes. There are, however, quality issues in the delivery of further education services that adversely affect these initiatives, and these issues are discussed further below.

Despite the government's efforts in recent years to design, implement, and promote further educational initiatives, there are significant constraints in how these programs are being implemented and administered. For example, based on the results of the first four years of college inspections, the Ofsted report "Further education matters" emphasized that, "There are problems in the recruitment and training of FE teachers" (2005, 24). The report also noted that, "Colleges have not been able to discern either what is meant by quality, or where the responsibility for it resides, whether it lies with themselves, the inspectorates, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), the LSC, the Learning and Skills Development Agency and the Centre for Excellence in Leadership" (2005:30). Yet another problem facing further education colleges is the pressure to provide degree programs for students whose career goals may not require a university education. In this regard, Johnstone points out that, "Students currently feel obliged to get a degree — any degree — because of unreasonable and unnecessary employer demands and the general scarcity of alternative vocational training" (2010:25).

Notwithstanding the efforts to address these problems at the national level, significant constraints remain in recruiting talented and committed teachers who are qualified to provide instruction in literacy and mathematics as well as in specialty areas such as English for speakers of other languages and the vocational areas needed in the British economy. Even though many further education teachers were trained for their positions, there were no formal requirements for such teaching posts until as recently as 2001 (Further education matters, 2005). In 2001, Ofsted was tasked with conducting inspections of further education training following the introduction of newly published national regulations intended to ensure the quality of further education teachers (Further education matters, 2005). Among those requirements was the need for all further education teachers to obtain a teaching qualification, and in 2002 the government introduced the Success for All initiative, with its pillars focused on training, learning, and teaching (Further education matters, 2005).

The UK Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, Bill Rammell, noted that as part of the Success for All initiative, a new Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status would be required of all FE teachers; new qualification standards for the principals of further education colleges were also included as part of the overall effort (UK Government: Professionalising the workforce in further education, 2006). After 2008, lecturers in further education colleges were required to register with a professional body and pursue regular professional development — up to 30 hours per year for full-time teachers — in order to improve their teaching skills and subject knowledge (Clancy 2007). All teachers entering the FE profession after 2008 were also required to acquire a licence to practise and satisfy new qualification requirements assigning them either Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status or Associate Teacher Learning and Skills (ATLS) status (Clancy 2007). Although further education teachers employed prior to this date were not required to attain this credentialing, they were encouraged to do so in order to ensure their standing as professional educators (Clancy 2007).

There is also a push to increase the rigor of the credentialing process for further education teachers. Thompson recently observed that, "Further education lecturers are already allowed to teach post-16 and post-14 pupils in schools in Great Britain. Further education teachers with Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) should first gain Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) before they will be allowed to teach in schools" (2010:3). This recommendation is based in large part on the fact that the QTLS is "not a test but really a personal narrative that each applicant presents to provide evidence of his/her professional practice and status" (Education: The Training Game, 2009:10). The chief executive of the Institute for Learning, Toni Fazaeli, concurs and maintains that students will benefit from the expertise offered by further education teachers who hold the more rigorous credentials required to attain QTS (Thompson 2010).

Following the implementation of these requirements, Ofsted published a series of findings and recommendations in its report "The training of further education teachers" in November 2003 (Further education matters, 2005). The report's recommendations were implemented, but its findings included the observation that the current approach to further education teacher training fails to provide an adequate foundation for new teachers (Further education matters, 2005). Specifically, the Ofsted report found that current methods of FE teacher training did not give new teachers sufficient opportunities to learn how to teach their given specialty areas, and that the mentoring and workplace support they received were frequently insufficient for their needs (Further education matters, 2005). As Ofsted put it, "Their needs are not adequately addressed at the start of their courses and the training programmes are therefore not sufficiently tailored to them" (Further education matters, 2005, 4).

Indeed, many authorities agree that there is a need to provide student teachers with hands-on teaching opportunities to produce professionalized lecturers for further education colleges and universities. Karamustafaoglu reports that, "The most significant objective of pre-service teacher education is to educate qualified teachers. How this quality can be attained seems possible by designing teacher education programs which enable students to acquire skills such as reaching knowledge and solving problems. It is thought that student teachers begin to understand the profession through the practices of teaching. In this way they will be able to improve themselves and reinforce their professional knowledge and skills effectively, and learn how to act accordingly" (2009:172).

Statement of the Problem

Nevertheless, despite the implementation of the 2003 report's recommendations, a number of constraints remained firmly in place, including unnecessarily complex funding arrangements that prevented further education colleges from making substantive progress in addressing these problems (Further education matters, 2005). The report also cited "excessively diffuse and complex responsibility for 'quality'" as representing yet another constraint on college improvement (Further education matters, 2005). Other constraints identified by Ofsted include the following:

1. There are too few specialist teachers;
2. Too many vocational tutors lack the skills needed to teach literacy and numeracy;
3. There is too much unsatisfactory teaching;
4. Colleges need support, and funding arrangements need to be clearer and applied more consistently across the country and across settings;
5. Project funding tends to be short term and inhibits a strategic approach; and
6. Poor information means that some students in some colleges do not receive adequate learning support.

Taken together, the foregoing trends and constraints point to a situation in which many colleges are not being provided with the resources and incentives they need to develop the quality teacher cadre required to produce learners with the skills and knowledge needed to compete in the 21st-century workplace — an issue that forms the basis of this study.

The purpose of this study was three-fold: (1) to deliver a comprehensive and critical review of the relevant literature concerning recent and current initiatives intended to support further education in the United Kingdom; (2) to identify a new model for education and training for further education to promote teacher professionalism; and (3) to identify quality issues that can be used as opportunities for improving further education provision in England in sustainable ways that ensure equality and diversity of access to these resources.

Clearly, the stakes involved in the provision of high-quality further educational services are high, and the outcomes for learners, teachers, and the British economy are vitally important. According to Ofsted, "When the stakes are high, colleges find ways to improve, and the success of their response to reinspection surely makes the powerful point that responsibility for quality can only be successfully located at local level" (Further education matters, 2005:4). The responsibility for quality has been diffused to the point where it is difficult to pinpoint which organization is primarily responsible for this aspect of further education teacher development. According to Ofsted, "The sector as a whole, through the Quality Improvement Strategy, should define what is meant by 'quality' and accept the disciplines associated with clear lines of accountability and sharply defined expectations" (Further education matters, 2005:1).

Moreover, the emphasis on improving the skills and qualifications of further education teachers has become inextricably interrelated with the need to support the private sector. Hayes (2004) reports that various ministers have expressed the need to revise further education curricular offerings to make them more relevant to the current and projected needs of employers in the United Kingdom. Hayes cites the example of Minister John Healey, who explained his perspective as Adult Skills Minister: "First and foremost it's an economic policy area. It's a question of employability, it's a question of productivity and competitiveness" (quoted at 143). Like some other critics of current further education curricula, Healey maintains that they are not meeting the needs of employers and calls for additional changes. As Hayes points out, however, "The danger here is that FE ceases to be further education if it is merely a reaction to the needs and whims of employers" (2004, 144). There are also problems among the general public that make the effective implementation of further education initiatives difficult. Moran and Rumble emphasize that, "Despite the formidable role played by further education, it is the least understood and celebrated part of the learning tapestry. Further education suffers because of prevailing British attitudes" (2004, 6). The foregoing clearly indicates the need for a new model for education and training to promote further education teacher professionalism, an issue that also forms the basis for this study.

In recent years, England has placed a very high value on further education. According to Moran and Rumble, "There remains a very carefully calibrated hierarchy of worthwhile achievement, which has clearly established routes and which privileges academic success well above any other accomplishment" (2004, 6). Consequently, the series of initiatives undertaken in recent years to promote continuing education requires a cadre of professional teachers to ensure their success. By identifying improved approaches to helping new and current further education teachers provide the high-quality educational services that learners need in the 21st-century workplace, this study stands to contribute in meaningful and important ways to the goals of the further education program.

This study used a three-chapter format to achieve the above-stated research purpose. Chapter One introduced the topics under consideration, a statement of the problem, and the purpose, importance, scope, and rationale of the study. Chapter Two provides a critical review of the relevant peer-reviewed literature. Chapter Three presents the study's conclusions, a summary of the research, and salient recommendations for educators and policymakers in England and the United Kingdom.

Quality in further education has become an important issue for the government in recent years. Consequently, a wide range of initiatives have been launched to improve standards for both curricular offerings and teachers practicing in the further education sector (Quality in FE, 2010). A series of white papers published over the past several years have served as the impetus for many of these efforts. For example, in March 2006, a white paper entitled "Raising skills, improving life chances" was published, based on the findings of a comprehensive analysis of further education sponsored by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and conducted by Sir Andrew Foster (Further education white paper, 2006).

The purpose and role of further education institutions was specifically addressed in this white paper. According to Hayes, "The white paper gave particular prominence to the role that further education can play in reviving the economy. It seems that the government sees a key role for colleges and other training providers in helping to overcome the skills gap" (2004:143). This fundamental connection between curricular offerings and the private sector has become a hallmark of the further education program in the United Kingdom (Kingston 2001). In addition, the white paper recommended that each further education college should have a minimum of one specialist area, which resulted in the establishment of so-called "Centres for Vocational Excellence," or CoVEs (Lynn 2006). According to Lynn, "Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) are central to the Learning and Skills Council's aim of improving and developing the skills that employers need to underpin business success and economic competitiveness. CoVEs are focused on delivering vocational skills that meet particular sector and industry needs through the development and delivery of high quality, specialist training across a range of sectors" (2006:28). Since that time, the CoVE Network has expanded to approximately 400 nationally approved centres covering 24 regions (Lynn 2006). The 24 regional CoVEs cover the following areas:

1. Adult and Social Care, Childcare and Public Services;
2. Automotive, Engineering, Technology and Manufacturing;
3. Business, Administration, Management and Professional;
4. Construction;
5. Hospitality, Sports, Leisure and Travel;
6. Information and Communication Technology;
7. Retailing, Customer Service, Logistics and Transport;
8. Visual and Performing Arts and Media (Lynn 2006).

The white paper also emphasized the need for quality in further education by recommending new standards for teachers (Further education white paper, 2006). According to the University and College Union, "September 2007 brought in changes to the qualifications required for teaching in further education, with raising the status of FE and its workforce being at the heart of the reforms. The changes also have implications for those teaching or training in other environments under an LSC (now replaced by the Skills Funding Agency) contract" (Quality in FE, 2010:3). The reforms introduced in 2007 also implemented new teaching qualifications for educators employed after September 2007 (Quality in FE, 2010). These new teaching qualifications have largely been focused on improving the professionalism of the teaching staff at further education institutions.

The need for a professional cadre of teachers in further education colleges and universities is clear. The definition provided by Black's Law Dictionary states that a professional is "one engaged in one of the learned professions or in an occupation requiring a high level of training and proficiency" (1999:1210). In many cases, further education teachers must take the initiative to identify what they require to perform their jobs effectively and take steps to secure the requisite resources. According to Huddleston and Lewin, "Given the diversity of Further Education (FE) life and the volatility of curricula within colleges, every FE teacher has to make plans to ensure he or she has access to relevant and appropriate professional development opportunities" (2002:177). There are signs, however, that further education teachers will receive the recognition they deserve as professional educators based on the recent reforms and initiatives undertaken by the government. According to Hunt, "A quiet revolution may have just started in further education. The prospect — full recognition and re-vitalisation of lecturers' and tutors' professionalism. The University and College Union (UCU) welcomes the changes. The most positive feature of the new arrangements is the overdue recognition that FE lecturers are professionals" (2007:3).

Because these teachers are involved in a wide range of specialties at different levels, Huddleston and Lewin add that, "Given also that teachers in FE stretch from those who concentrate on basic skills through to those teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, the scope of professional development must, necessarily, be broad enough to encompass the wide range of professional needs" (2002:177). The concept of professionalism carries a number of implications for further education teachers. Huddleston and Lewin note that, "Many of us use the term 'professional' regularly to convey a range of meanings among which might be identified the possession of a body of knowledge and expertise, normally accredited with academic or vocational qualifications, and the awareness of a set of values or a code of conduct that governs our relationship with 'clients', the ethics of our profession" (2002:178). Beyond these meanings, they add that, "Professionalism also implies a relationship with colleagues that includes responsibility for monitoring the standards in our practice and an acceptance of responsibility or a sense of accountability to the community we serve" (2002:179). In many ways, this "sense of accountability" has become a key focus of the professionalism aspects of further education initiatives by linking academic offerings and outcomes specifically to the needs of employers. Lowe and Gayle emphasize, however, that, "The concept of professionality should be embraced, emphasising the ability to create a value base and an institutional culture which locates management, not above and in isolation from other staff, but as part of a network of professional expertise that has, at its core, a focus upon the complexity of the needs, values and expectations of lifelong learners" (2010:159).

While it is reasonable to suggest that most educators and policymakers would agree that a high degree of professionalism is required to deliver the quality educational services needed to achieve the goals of further education, there remains some disagreement concerning how best to define this aspect of the profession. Gleeson, Davies, and Wheeler report that, "At a time when neo-liberal reform has significantly impacted on this under-researched and over-market-tested sector, little is known about who its practitioners are and how they construct meaning in their work" (2005:445). Pursuant to the notion of a "sense of accountability" is also the manner in which further education teachers have been increasingly scrutinized by regular inspections and observations of their work in the classroom. As Gleeson and colleagues emphasize, "Sociological interest in the field has tended to focus on further education practitioners as either the subjects of market and managerial reform or as creative agents operating within the contradictions of audit and inspection cultures" (2005:445).

Review of the Literature

It is little wonder, then, that further education teachers and the organizations that represent them are calling for a more informed perspective concerning definitions of professionalism and how quality is measured in their field. According to Gleeson et al., both the social context in which further educational services are delivered and the views of the educators responsible for that delivery must be taken into account when formulating concepts of professionalism. Gleeson et al. conclude that, "In challenging such dualism, which is reflective of wider sociological thinking, agency and structure combine to produce a more transformative conception of the further education professional. The approach contrasts with a prevailing policy discourse that seeks to re-professionalise and modernise further education practice without interrogating either the terms of its professionalism or the neo-liberal practices in which it reside" (2005:446). In addition, Lee (2010) reports that many college teachers' organisations have argued that they are being required to repeat too much work in order to achieve higher-level qualifications to be regarded as professionals in the further education sector. Part of the problem appears to be a serious disconnect between teacher expectations and the expectations of the government and industry (Hallett 2010). According to Braid, "The government's agenda is very much about skills, but the universities' agenda is about research and education. People who work in universities are not equipped to teach skills" (2007:9).

Indeed, just as students need and want to know what is expected of them in order to achieve desired academic outcomes, so too do further education teachers need to know what is expected of them in order to achieve the level of professionalism required in an era of increasing accountability. As one further education teacher lamented, there is a profound lack of recognition of further education teachers as true professionals: "It is dispiriting when an inquiry to the General Teaching Council results in the information that we do not have Qualified Teacher Status," Chenery emphasizes, adding that, "As a graduate with a 2:1 honours degree who has spent a further year qualifying to teach in further education, I find this insulting. Do my years of hard work teaching in the FE sector count for nothing?" (2002:2). To achieve the level of professionalism demanded in this new era of accountability requires an improved understanding of what is expected of further education teachers. In this regard, Braid notes that, "Even in business schools the talk is about delivering what companies want, but the schools don't go to firms to ask what they want. Most university academics have never worked in business so they don't understand the market and don't realise that they are teaching people who are principally at university to get a job" (2007:9).

To help overcome these problems, the recommendations provided by Ofsted for improving further education are outlined in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Recommendations from Ofsted for Improving the Quality of Further Education in England

Inspectorates, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC):
1. Proceed as rapidly as possible with the development and implementation of measures of success that would permit greater differentiation between different types of institution and allow for recognition of the full range of achievement in colleges;
2. Evaluate school sixth forms in the same way as other post-16 provision; and
3. Assess FE colleges in relation to their contribution to the area they serve, as well as to individual learners.

DfES and LSC:
1. Simplify and reduce the bureaucracy associated with college funding;
2. Support colleges to be more responsive to the needs of employers; and
3. Support further expansion in colleges' roles for learners aged 14–16.

DfES:
1. Clarify the distinction between advice and guidance, regulation, inspection, and policy formulation, and make clear who does what; and
2. Assign the primary role in promoting quality to colleges themselves.

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA):
Should proceed rapidly with the rationalisation of the vocational curriculum and provide models for the development of a coherent 14–19 vocational curriculum framework.

Managers of colleges:
1. Continue to improve self-assessment and colleges' capacity to secure improvement in curriculum areas; and
2. Look to meet local needs, including those of employers, and in those areas of the country where it is needed, seek to increase the provision available at levels 1 and 2.

Source: Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, Further Education Matters (2005)

By and large, further education colleges are in fact delivering high-quality and professional educational services. The results of the most recent series of inspections of further education colleges covering a four-year period found that the provision of educational services in FE colleges was good or outstanding. These findings were based on 424 inspections covering 4,000 areas of learning and 70,000 observed lessons. Although there has been a consistent improvement in the quality of educational services being delivered in further education colleges in England over the past several years, much more remains to be done to improve the status of the educators working in these institutions.