ATL

Further education: final report

The government has made 14-19 education a priority for its next term. ATL has members in further education (FE) who are increasingly teaching children within the 14-16 age group.

This position statement supports the argument for pay parity based on the government's education and equality policies as well as ATL's own policies, such as ATL's position statement entitled New Professionalism .

Education research and student performance

Schools are currently subject to an attainment target culture which reflects the 'poverty no excuse' mantra of the late 90s, but the funding system in the learning and skills sector enforces an even stronger target culture. Yet research, not least (and paradoxically) from the school improvement movement, constantly reiterates the causal link between educational performance and social class, and between class mix and the ethos and organisation of education institutions in particular. To understand the performance of FE colleges it is necessary to understand the background of the student population and the barriers that can prevent students from progressing to higher education.

The policy context - ATL and government

ATL's New Professionalism position statement asserts that "Teaching as a profession is essentially intellectual - based on a high degree of general and systematised knowledge. This includes an in-depth knowledge of learning: how pupils learn, potential obstacles to learning, pre-conditions and dispositions to learning and how learning develops...". It is clear from this that knowledge and understanding of how young people learn and the obstacles to learning are as important to staff in the learning and skills sector as to staff in schools. Initial and in-service training of FE staff, individually and collectively, is therefore required to strengthen in-depth knowledge and understanding and also for continuous professional development.

The logic of the government's position leads to similar conclusions. The government identifies a more skilled workforce as central to its economic policies, and a more educationally successful population as central to its equality policies. Since the learning and skills sector disproportionately supports less successful learners, for both policy reasons it needs a different type of development. Further, its adherence to a social partnership for school teachers illustrates an acceptance that workforce quality and workforce development are the most important factors in service delivery in the public sector.

Even within the context of a slowdown in the growth in spending on education, the government must remain committed to increased spending on the learning and skills sector. This is due not only to the principled policy position outlined above, but also to a range of political pressures. In particular, the gap in funding between the learning and skills and the schools sectors creates substantial difficulties for the implementation of the 14-19 agenda. Growth will also be necessary in order to meet the aspiration to improve the post-16 participation rate, now notoriously very low in comparison with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member states.

Whatever Downing Street's present position on assessment reform, it can also be assumed that the introduction of the diploma from 2008 and the emphasis on institutional collaboration 14-19, together with participation incentives, will accelerate the blurring of a number of boundaries, not least that of the school-leaving age. It is not in the interests of ATL members to be part of a reconfiguration of FE colleges as the post-14 secondary modern, and ATL should resist bilateralism in curriculum, assessment and institutional arrangements. However, collaboration between institutions is certain to grow, and that means collaboration between professionals.

Education policy, qualifications and pay in FE

ATL has been campaigning since 1993 for parity of pay and terms of employment between school teachers and FE lecturers. This disparity in pay is further exacerbated by the failure of some 43 per cent of colleges to pay lecturers the national recommendation, as set out in the agreed pay spine. ATL will continue to support members and colleges in FE to implement the agreed pay spine where this has not been done and where members request it. This position statement ties the government's educational priority to increase rates of participation in education within post-compulsory schooling with ATL's campaign to achieve parity of pay and terms and conditions between FE lecturers and school teachers.

The longstanding ATL aspiration for pay parity between school and FE teachers will become practicable if the government's policy priority is converted into further funding increases to follow the rise of £1.2 billion in 2005-06. Other policy contexts outlined above argue the necessity for workforce development, an argument accepted by the government in its recent white paper. The link is clear: ATL will argue for a training and qualifications structure that both produces a quality workforce and also justifies pay parity.

There is a long history of work on workforce quality but in each attempt to raise teaching standards in the sector the issue of professionalism has been buried. Staff view the teaching qualifications as a mere paper audit of competencies that have no depth. This was set out by the first of several regulators of the Qualified Lecturer Status (QLS), the Training and Development Lead Body. Despite no fewer than six regulators entering the field, qualifications have a poor image among FE college staff, who view them as inappropriate in terms of recognition of teachers' professionalism.

In all of these regulatory bodies, employers who wish to see specific vocational competencies in particular forms have set the agenda, with standards expressed as outcomes, results and achievements rather than activities or tasks that underpin knowledge. This is in contrast to initial teacher training where teachers learn to synthesise and explore knowledge that underpins their understanding in either a Bachelor of Education or Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE).

There is clearly a major need to reflect on what it will mean to be a qualified lecturer within the new policy context. In relation to 'Success for All', Alan Johnson, the minister for lifelong learning stated, "Our consultation is about making sure every trainee teacher in the learning and skills sector has the right skills to succeed in front of a classroom or workshop." This betrays a limited perspective on professionalism; Ofsted recommended that the DfES considered how to link the current standards for school teachers with those for FE teachers and other trainers working in the learning and skills sector. The government's response to this was to seek 'stronger links and greater synergy between the standards required to teach in each sector'.

In contrast, ATL asserts the need to move from the idea of the teacher as a technician, with the student as a unit of cost/funding, towards a system of complete equivalence with school teachers' qualifications. This could begin with the Certificate of Education or the PGCE (FE). ATL believes that the training needs of school and FE staff are equivalent; they require the same rights to, and opportunities for, professional development. Both require in-depth knowledge of how pupils learn, the potential obstacles to learning and the craft skills of maximising learning.

The inescapable conclusion is that it is now time for the QLS to be replaced by the qualified teacher status (QTS), as the benchmark of teacher professionalism in FE colleges. It is time for lecturers to become teachers. It follows that teaching staff in FE colleges with QTS should be paid the same rates as teachers, subject to the Schoolteachers' Pay and Conditions Document.

It is accepted that there are issues of access to QTS for a proportion of teachers in FE colleges. Graduate lecturers should be given opportunities for similar on-the-job training as applied in the Graduate Teacher Programme for school teachers. However, teachers of vocational courses who have been recruited from the relevant employment sector are unlikely to be graduates, and this creates barriers to working towards QTS. This is a difficulty, certainly, but it is capable of resolution once the principles of QTS and pay parity are conceded, and the principles of workforce reform in schools become applicable.

Recommendations

ATL believes:

• there should be parity of pay and terms of employment between school teachers and FE lecturers

• that colleges should meet the agreed pay recommendations set out in the pay spine

• that qualifications should be equalised with teachers in FE colleges achieving QTS.

ATL will continue to campaign on these fronts.

If you would like further information, or to comment, on this briefing paper please do so by contacting ATL.