This article was downloaded by: [Memorial University of Newfoundland]On: 03 August 2014, At: 01:24Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

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Standardising teaching: the introduction of thenational standards for teaching and supportinglearning in further education in England and WalesAnn-Marie Bathmaker aa University of Sheffield , United KingdomPublished online: 20 Dec 2006.

To cite this article: Ann-Marie Bathmaker (2000) Standardising teaching: the introduction of the national standards forteaching and supporting learning in further education in England and Wales, Journal of In-Service Education, 26:1, 9-23,DOI: 10.1080/13674580000200101

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Journal of In-Service Education, Volume 26, Number 1, 2000

9

Standardising Teaching: the introduction of the National Standards for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Further Education in England and Wales

ANN-MARIE BATHMAKER University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT Standards for further education teachers in England and Wales were launched in January 1999 by the newly established Further Education National Training Organisation. They are intended to inform the initial training and continuing professional development of those involved in teaching and learning in further education. Despite an announcement by the Labour Government in The Learning Age Green Paper in 1998 that a qualification for teachers in further education would become mandatory, this decision was withdrawn at the launch of the Standards, and a more cautious wait-and-see approach announced. As part of the consultation and development process prior to the launch of the Standards, the University of Wolverhampton and partner further education colleges undertook a mapping exercise of the draft standards against the University’s Further Education Certificate in Education programme, and elements of the Standards will be incorporated into the Certificate in Education from September 1999. This article discusses the implications of the Standards for FE teacher training and considers what sort of ‘teaching and learning professional’ is implied by the Standards. It argues that, in themselves, the Standards could provide a useful basis for training and development. However, they need to be considered in the wider context of education and training, including college incorporation, institutional inspection and standards. Set in this context, it is argued, they could be used as an additional means of monitoring and control, rather than the basis for the development of an innovative and forward-looking profession.

Introduction

Standards for further education teachers in England and Wales were launched in January 1999 by the newly established Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO). They are intended to inform the D

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initial training and continuing professional development of those involved in teaching and learning in further education (FE). Despite an announcement by the Labour Government in The Learning Age Green Paper in 1998, that a qualification for teachers in further education would become mandatory, this decision was withdrawn at the launch of the Standards, and a more cautious wait-and-see approach announced by Baroness Blackstone in January 1999 (McGavin, 1999b)). As part of the consultation and development process prior to the launch of the Standards, the University of Wolverhampton and partner FE colleges undertook a mapping exercise of the draft standards against the University’s FE Certificate in Education programme, elements of which will be incorporated into the Certificate in Education from September 1999. This article discusses the implications of the Standards for FE teacher training and considers what sort of ‘teaching and learning professional’ is implied by the Standards.

A Qualification for Teaching in Further Education

The lifelong learning agenda of both the previous Conservative and the present Labour Governments has raised the profile of further education. This agenda emphasises widening participation, highlighted by the Kennedy Report on Widening Participation (1997), and raising levels of achievement in education and training to achieve global competitiveness. The Green Paper The Learning Age: a renaissance for a new Britain (DfEE, 1998) emphasises the need for a ‘well-educated, well-equipped and adaptable labour’, the need to foster a love of learning and the importance of a high quality teaching force (DfEE, 1998, p. 7). Yet, while teachers in the maintained school sector are required to have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), a teaching qualification for further education lecturers has remained voluntary, even though the further education sector has become the major provider of education and training for the 16–19-year-old age group (Lucas, 1996) as well as a provider for adults of all ages. Traditionally in further education, the subject knowledge and vocational expertise of lecturers have taken precedence over teaching skills, and lecturers have not necessarily seen themselves as professional educators (Lucas, 1996).

When the Labour Government came to power in 1997, it announced that a statutory qualification for teachers in further education would be introduced. The subsequent Learning Age Green Paper (DfEE, 1998) specified that all new teachers in further education should hold, or within 2 years of appointment have begun, a recognised initial teacher qualification, and this led to the development of national standards for teaching in further education in England and Wales. However, the commitment was withdrawn by Baroness Blackstone at the launch of the

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National Standards (McGavin, 1999b), ‘despite evidence that it would attract a better calibre of staff and boost the status of the sector’.

A variety of qualifications for teachers in further education are already available. A Certificate/Post-graduate Certificate in Education for teachers in the post-compulsory sector already exists (throughout this paper the term ‘Certificate in Education’ is used to refer to both). It is similar to the Post-Graduate Certificate in Education for primary and secondary teachers, and is usually offered as a 1-year full-time or a 2-year in-service course. It was originally offered by four institutions – Bolton, Garnett (now Greenwich), Huddersfield and Wolverhampton. The in-service programme is presently offered by an estimated 40 different higher education institutions, usually in collaboration with partner further education colleges (Lucas, 1996). In addition to the Certificate in Education, City and Guilds offer qualifications in the 730 series, which are widely used to provide first-stage teaching qualifications, and as a stepping stone onto the Certificate in Education. Other awards are also available, often for teaching in specific areas such as basic skills and English for Speakers of Other Languages.

A considerable number of staff teaching in further education already has a teaching qualification. The Further Education Funding Council has attempted to quantify the number of staff with teaching qualifications (FEFC, 1999) and its findings highlight some of the issues involved in developing professional qualifications for teaching in FE. It claimed that 76–100% of full-time staff had a teaching qualification and highlighted this as a strength. (The highest proportion of these are in sixth form colleges, where a teaching qualification was mandatory until sixth form colleges were incorporated into further education from the schools sector under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.) However, the FEFC also recognised the difficulty in defining a ‘teaching qualification’ because of the wide range available in further education. Despite the figures above, only 50% of full-time staff hold a PGCE or Certificate in Education (McGavin, 1999a), whereas the FEFC chose to include in its definition ‘a Cert Ed/PGCE; a Bachelor in Education (BEd) or Bachelor of Arts (BA) with QTS; a 730 or similar’ (the ‘or similar’ was not defined, but assessor qualifications were excluded). Yet, as noted above, the 730 is seen as a stepping stone to the Certificate in Education, and is considered to be a lower level qualification (level 1 in university credits).

While the high proportion of full-time staff with a teaching qualification was highlighted as a strength by FEFC, inadequate training for part-time staff was identified as a weakness. This is a serious concern in the light of the changing staff profile in FE: between 1994 and 1996, there was a small increase of 2% in full-time staff, but a substantial increase of 13% in part-time staff (FEFC, 1999). The use of considerable numbers of part-time staff and staff on hourly contracts in further education highlights the need for a system of teacher education which D

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includes them in its provision. In addition to the above, the FEFC found that more support and administrative staff were doing work previously carried out by teachers, and there were hybrid posts which involved teaching, technical, or learning support and assessment.

Therefore, there are differences involved in the provision of initial training for teaching staff in the post-compulsory sector and the preparation of schoolteachers. Unlike the schools sector, where most trainee teachers are likely to be new to teaching, and can anticipate full-time or regular part-time employment at the end of their training, most students on the in-service route of a post-compulsory sector Certificate in Education are already teaching in further, adult or higher education. The students may be part-time teachers on contracts of anything from 5 to 21 hours per week; they may be full-time permanent teaching staff with considerable experience or new, inexperienced teachers. Some of the students will have completed a City and Guilds 730 programme. In addition to the variety of teaching experience, staff teaching in further education may not be graduates, whereas most secondary school teacher trainees are (the further education Certificate in Education is usually offered as a Certificate for undergraduates and a Post-graduate Certificate for graduates). Many lecturers in further education have entered teaching from business and industry with hands-on experience in a vocational area, and this experience has traditionally been seen as more important than a degree for a vocationally orientated learning environment.

In addition to their own diverse backgrounds, they are working in a sector which has responded to demands for marketisation, competitiveness and the ‘more for less’ demands of both the previous and current governments in a far more ruthless way than the schools sector. Themes which arise regularly in work on the FE sector include: loss of control, the intensification of labour, the increase in administration, the perceived marginalisation of teaching, and the stress on measurable performance indicators (Avis, 1999; see also Gleeson, 1993; Hyland, 1996; Ainley & Bailey, 1997; Randle & Brady, 1997; Gleeson & Shain, 1999). Whilst these features are equally present in the schools sector, they are writ large in FE, with part-time staff often paid a minimal hourly rate through agencies such as the Education Lecturing Service, redundancy notices a regular feature for permanent staff, and claims of mismanagement and corruption in the name of increasing market competitiveness appearing regularly in the press (see for example, Batey, 1999; Beckett, 1999; Conford, 1999; Crequer, 1999; McGavin, 1999c).

Such trends have coincided with a strongly managerialist approach to all aspects of college life, including teaching and learning (Avis et al, 1996; Randle and Brady, 1997; Avis, 1999; Gleeson and Shain, 1999) coupled with a move towards the use of ‘cheap’ teaching staff, who can act as teaching and learning ‘technicians’, and supervise the flexible self-learning of the next generation of workers in their particular field. D

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However, the complexity of post-compulsory learning, both in terms of its structure and the need to meet demands for academic, vocational and broad generic skills in the context of widening participation and raising achievement, suggests that there is a great need for professional educators who critically engage with their role as teachers.

Developing the Standards

The National Standards for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Further Education in England and Wales are intended to contribute to the training and development of teachers in FE. During 1997 to 1998, following work on mapping the whole further education sector, the Further Education Staff Development Forum developed the National Standards for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Further Education, which aim to cover what is expected of a teacher in further education in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland already have their own standards for FE teachers). The development process involved widespread consultation with staff from further education institutions – the intended consumers of the Standards, but rather less with higher education – one of the possible providers of development and training. The trial of the Standards by the University of Wolverhampton, which mapped the seventh draft of the Standards against the University’s Certificate in Education for FE teachers, was one of the few examples of consultation with higher education. The Standards, now ‘owned’ by the newly established Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO), are intended to form the benchmark for training and development of teachers in the further education sector. This includes initial training and continuing professional development. Lucas (1996) envisaged that this would include progression routes to degrees and beyond, combining college- and university-based modules (Lucas, 1996). It is proposed that Certificate in Education programmes go through an accreditation process with FENTO to ensure that relevant parts of the Standards are incorporated into the Certificate (Peeke & Spencer, 1998), though it is not yet clear what the accreditation process would involve.

The Standards were officially launched in January 1999. Prior to the launch, Peeke identified the Certificate in Education as the likely recognised initial teacher training qualification for both pre- and in-service teachers in FE (Peeke & Spencer, 1998). However, in her keynote speech at the launch of the Standards, Baroness Blackstone would not commit the Government to any form of qualification requirement for teaching in FE, stating:

It is far too soon to talk about QTS within five years. We need to do some more thinking. We need to consider what the recognised qualifications should b,; and how we define substantial part-time teaching. (McGavin, 1999b)

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For a government apparently committed to lifelong learning, it seems a rather disappointing response to leave the FE sector, a major contributor to lifelong learning, with no required teaching and learning qualification, particularly in the light of FEFC findings, that:

Inspection, with its focus on student achievement and classroom observation, has highlighted the need for improvements in teaching and learning. (FEFC, 1999, p. 1)

and that:

weaknesses in teaching and the promotion of learning are mainly attributable to poor pedagogic skills, and insufficient knowledge about how learning takes place. (FEFC, 1999, summary page)

Comparing the Standards to the Certificate of Education

The Government’s unwillingness to commit itself does, however, allow greater consideration of the role of the Standards in teacher development. Prior to the launch of the Standards, the University of Wolverhampton completed a pilot project for the Further Education Development Agency (FEDA), which mapped the draft standards against the units of competence and the modules in the University’s current Certificate in Education programme. The project aimed to identify commonalities and differences, and it did not set out to question whether or not there should be standards. However, the effect of ‘standards’ on influencing our understandings of useful and valuable knowledge and skills should not be ignored. This is particularly so in the context of institutional auditing and inspection, with funding dependent on outcomes, so that institutions increasingly prioritise only those things which will help to achieve successful inspection grades (Elliott, 1996).

The project did not look at the links between standards for teachers in FE, and the different standards for teachers in adult education, higher education, the training sector and elsewhere. However, students on current Certificate in Education programmes may be from these sectors as well as FE and it is essential that a learning continuum for FE teachers should not be separated and disconnected from development for those involved in other sectors, and working together needs to be explored further. What the project did attempt to do was to discover how far there was a match or mismatch between the knowledge and skills which the Certificate of Education aimed to develop and the sort of teachers defined by the Standards.

Summary of Coverage

At a superficial glance, much of what appears in the Standards is included in the Wolverhampton Certificate in Education programme. However, the

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detailed mapping exercise indicated that coverage of the different key areas varied. The key areas of teaching in the Standards are as follows:

(a) assessing learners’ needs; (b) planning and preparing teaching and learning programmes for groups and individuals; (c) developing and using a range of teaching and learning techniques; (d) managing the learning process; (e) providing learners with support; (f) assessing the outcomes of learning and learners’ achievements; (g) reflecting upon and evaluating one’s own performance and planning future practice.

The final version of the Standards has an additional key area:

(h) meeting professional requirements.

Each key area includes a list of generic knowledge, and a number of 'elements', which list skills and ‘critical understanding and essential knowledge’. The project mapped each key area in the Standards against the University programme, looked at each item on the list and decided whether it was:

(a) addressed in the teaching and learning on the Certificate in Education; (b) assessed through evidence of practice; (c) assessed through the University’s competence units; (d) assessed by an academic assignment.

We used a scale of 0–3, indicating no coverage in the Certificate in Education (0) through to full coverage (3). We also identified items, which we believed were inappropriate for an initial teacher training programme.

We found that our current Certificate in Education programme provided good coverage of:

Key Area B (elements b1 and b2): Planning and preparing teaching and learning programmes for groups and individuals.

Key Area C: Developing and using a range of teaching and learning techniques.

Key Area D: Managing the learning process. Key Area F: Assessing the outcomes of learning and learners’

achievement.

Other areas were covered very little. These included:

Key Area A: Assessing learner needs (this Key Area focuses on diagnostic assessment of learners on entry to a programme and comprises a1: identify and plan for the needs of potential learners, and a2: make an initial assessment of learners’ needs.

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Key Area B (element b3): Planning and preparing teaching and learning programmes for groups and individuals. Element b3 focuses on enhancing access to and participation in learning programmes. Key Area E: Providing learners with support. This Key Area is mainly concerned with induction, learning support and guidance. Key Area G: Reflecting on and evaluating own performance and planning future practice, was covered to a certain extent, but the emphasis on the teacher’s position within a team and within a particular organisation suggested that such reflection could be very context-specific.

Our mapping raised a number of issues. We found that some areas covered work which would be specific to a particular institution, such as parts of Key Area F: Assessing the outcomes of learning and learners’ achievement, which related to working with Awarding Bodies and Exam Boards. Other areas were relevant to staff with a specific role, such as Key Area A: Assessing learner needs, much of which is now done by staff who have a specific guidance role, and mainstream teaching staff would not necessarily be involved.

Some of the Standards were not applicable to pre-service, inexperienced teachers, such as b3: Enhance access to and participation in learning programmes, but may be appropriate for experienced teachers completing a Certificate in Education in-service. Furthermore, the level and nature of achievement expected for some areas, such as Key Area E: Providing learners with support, may vary between experienced in-service staff and inexperienced teachers.

Some areas were more practice-based and had less theoretical underpinning than the Certificate in Education, such as parts of Key Area C: Developing and using a range of teaching and learning techniques. Here, the Standards had more in common with City and Guilds 730 than the Certificate in Education programme. We found that the specific stress on group work, experiential learning and individualised learning was more pronounced than in the Certificate in Education. There was a possible over-emphasis on experiential learning, while the emphasis on individual learning reflected general moves in this direction.

The Standards represented to us the knowledge and skills that an experienced, full-time member of staff working in a further education college might be expected to demonstrate. Even here, some of the Standards, for example e1: Induct learners into the organisation and parts of e2: Provide effective learning support, are sufficiently specialised to apply perhaps to specific staff within a college, rather than all lecturing staff, and others are very context-specific and closely connected to organisational quality assurance. Certain Standards such as d7: Contribute to the organisation’s quality assurance system, would probably require further staff development for individuals if they moved from one organisation to another. D

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Whilst the Standards may inform future Certificate in Education programmes, the Certificate in Education aims to be a developmental programme which goes further than simply meeting and accrediting the criteria in the Standards, and the Standards would not be covered in their entirety in a programme of initial teacher training.[1] The Certificate in Education might address the broad generic knowledge for each key area, but not every detail of the skills and range of critical understanding and essential knowledge listed in each element of the Standards. This view is in line with the intended use of the Standards outlined by Peeke & Spencer (1998) and stated in the introduction to the final version of the Standards (FENTO, 1999), which proposes that they may be used to inform professional development from initial training, to in-service training, and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and recruitment, appraisal and the identification of training needs. On the one hand, this can be seen as a means of developing coherent progression. On the other, however, it may also serve as a straightjacket, making work beyond the content of the Standards very difficult.

Having identified the coverage of the Standards in the Certificate in Education, we did not envisage that the Standards would form the entirety of the Certificate in Education, or that they would be turned into competence units. Our mapping of the Standards showed that the teaching and learning related to the Standards occurred in taught modules and practical contexts, and the assessment could take the form of ‘academic assignments’, assessment of practice as well as evidence of practical ‘competence’. Peeke, who managed the development of the Standards by the FESDF, supported this view, and speaking at the launch of the FENTO Standards stated that earlier work in the FE sector with Training and Development Lead Body NVQs had not been ‘auspicious’, implying that translating the FENTO Standards into NVQs would not be the preferred approach.

Issues Raised by the Mapping Exercise

It would be easy to discuss these developments in isolation from the wider context of education and training in the post-compulsory sector. However, this would be to ignore the influence the wider context may well have on the interpretation and use of the Standards. They have been launched in a sector which has experienced major upheaval in relation to lecturers’ contracts since incorporation and an unprecedented intensification of work, linked to demands for market competitiveness (Ainley & Bailey, 1997; Randle & Brady, 1997; Gleeson & Shain, 1999). It would be naive to ignore the possibility that the Standards may be applied in such a way that they contribute more to the monitoring and intensification of lecturers’ work than to professional development. The drive for greater cost-effectiveness is certainly evident in The Learning D

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Age Green Paper, which at the same time as promoting high quality teaching and lifelong learning, sees the ‘potential for greater efficiency through rationalisation of provision and facilities’ (DfEE, 1998, p. 47), and proposes that funds will ‘encourage providers to find new, flexible and cost-effective methods of responding to individuals’ learning needs’ (DfEE, 1998, p. 26).

Such demands have led to an interpretation of quality by managers which is increasingly at odds with that of teaching staff (Gleeson & Shain, 1999) as outlined by Randle & Brady (1997):

While managers have defined quality in education in terms of providing a cost-effective product to a wider section of the community, staff regard this as a rationalization for increasing throughput while cutting costs. (p. 237)

A lack of investment in pedagogy at institutional level is highlighted by the FEFC, which found that, with the exception of assessor qualifications:

Very few colleges have given priority to the development of effective teaching skills, even when lesson inspection grades reveal pedagogic weaknesses. (FEFC, 1999, p. 7)

Seen in this context, the Standards could be used to further what Randle & Brady (1997) refer to as the deprofessionalisation of the teacher in further education, first, by establishing centralised control of the goals and purposes of the professional’s work and secondly, by appropriating control of the core task, the teaching process, with the aim of improving the productivity of teachers by intensifying their work (Avis et al, 1996; Ainley & Bailey, 1997; Bates, 1997; Randle & Brady, 1997). This seems far removed from Lucas’s goal:

Teachers in further education need to be more than simply instructors or assessors but multi-skilled professionals (Gee 1994) who are able to make holistic judgements according to the needs and circumstances of individuals. (Lucas, 1996, p. 70)

The use of the Standards to achieve a workforce of cost-efficient teaching and learning ‘technicians’ in further education would not, however, encourage the ‘autonomy, flexibility, and collegiality necessary to create the learning organisations required to socialise the new generation of knowledge workers’, as Graham (1998, p. 17) argues in his critique of the Teacher Training Agency model of teaching. Yet it seems all too possible that the Standards could be used to assist monitoring of performance, rather than encouraging learning and reflective practice in initial training, or the development and furthering of critical reflective practice in CPD.

A further issue concerns the possibility that the Standards could simply be turned into competence units, possibly in the form of a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ); their format certainly lends itself to easy translation into NVQ units. Qualifications based on the Standards D

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are not simply in the domain of higher education. The Awarding Bodies City and Guilds and Edexel are planning qualifications based on the Standards, although City and Guilds’ experience with its NVQ version of the 730 might discourage the development of a new NVQ (see Bathmaker, 1999). While some may argue that an NVQ is an appropriate step to take, there has been strong criticism of the use of NVQs for FE teacher training (Chown & Last, 1993; Hodkinson & Issitt, 1995; Hyland, 1993, 1996; Ecclestone, 1997), partly because the emphasis on competence in the form of skills updating has served to exclude engagement with the purposes of education and training, and a critical understanding of the constantly changing context. This does not mean that developing practical competence is considered unimportant. However, it is seen as part of the overall picture of teacher development, rather than the whole story; work-based learning is linked to a process of reflection and theorisation (Chown & Last, 1993; Eraut, 1994), which involves collaboration and group work, preferably across institutions (Hyland, 1996). In these ways, developing competence involves practice that is linked to reflection, engagement with theory and working collaboratively with others, with an implication that there is both time and space provided for this to take place. All this moves well beyond the limitations of the NVQ structure.

It is worth heeding the concerns raised by Edwards & Usher (1994) in their analysis and critique of the NVQ conception of competence. They see NVQ-style competence as a way of imposing self-discipline and self-regulation on individuals so that they conform to what is required. The close prescription of competent behaviour allows both the assessor and the assessed to keep a check on whether they are meeting performance criteria, which Usher and Edwards liken to external monitoring supported by self-surveillance, as ‘Surveillance becomes ever more pervasive and intrusive yet without appearing to be oppressive.’ (1994, p. 5) Applied in this manner, the Standards might offer an easy way to meet institutional monitoring and assessment requirements (for example, in relation to Further Education Funding Council inspections), which have already shifted from external inspection to self-inspection, but fail to stimulate the development of imaginative and creative professionals who can be flexible and responsive in a rapidly changing environment.

The provision of learning opportunities for FE teachers also needs consideration. The Certificate in Education is currently one of the few opportunities for sustained periods of learning for FE teachers. The Standards offer the means for provision to include more flexible, individualised learning and development. It is accepted practice that flexibility is achieved through modularised and unitised programmes of learning and assessment, and that individuals should select according to their needs. However, one implication of a high degree of flexibility is that learning can become atomised, compartmentalised, and both isolated D

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and isolating. Again, this issue is raised by the FEFC (1999), which identified as a weakness the decline in opportunities to network outside the college and with other colleges. It is, we would suggest, essential that standards are not used to increase institutional isolation. Rather, staff development systems need to include opportunities for sustained periods of learning, and create opportunities for cohesive groups of learners to work together and draw strength from their collaborative development. This is one of the strengths of the current Certificate in Education programmes, and the degree and masters programmes followed by many participants on completion of a Certificate in Education, and an area where higher education should continue to work in collaboration with FE, rather than in competition. In the context of the lifelong learning agenda, investment in the teachers as well as the learners in a lifelong learning society is essential. This is particularly important if lifelong learning is to mean more than meeting economic imperatives, and to embrace notions of social justice and citizenship (Avis et al, 1996).

Conclusions

As a result of the mapping work at the University of Wolverhampton, we concluded that the Standards could be used to contribute to, but not to constitute, a system which includes:

development of basic practical ‘survival’ teaching and learning skills; continuing development of practical skills, incorporating in-depth

knowledge and understanding of teaching and learning, with opportunities for review and reflection;

developing a deeper understanding of the teaching and learning process, and the context in which post-compulsory education takes place;

a profiling system for planning and recording individual development; a system for assessing the development of theoretical and critical

knowledge, and being able to choose and use it, commonly associated with academic-style assignments, presentations etc.;

an agreed system for credit transfer between the different qualifications and awarding bodies which may be involved, using the Standards to achieve alignment (this should also identify appropriate Accreditation of Prior Achievement for transfer to Qualified Teacher Status in the schools sector, and similar in relation to the Standards for teachers in higher education).

The final published version of the Standards (FENTO, 1999) could be interpreted as a prescriptive list of competences, and on their own, the Standards may do little more than accredit skills and could lead to a very narrow view of what teacher development looks like. However, the first part of the document identifies a set of values, which are intended to inform the Standards as a whole. These comprise reflective practice and

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scholarship; collegiality and collaboration; the centrality of learning and learner autonomy; and entitlement, equality and inclusiveness. Whilst these values may be open to differing interpretations, their inclusion is to be welcomed. There is a list of domain-wide knowledge, which includes critical understanding of issues such as the place of FE within the wider context; learning theory; social and cultural diversity and the effects of change on the FE sector. The list of personal skills and attributes includes intellectual rigour and integrity. At the launch it was emphasised that the content of the eight key areas of teaching should not be seen as set in stone, but open to change to meet changing needs. All this suggests that the Standards in themselves could be used effectively to support an overall framework of staff development in further education; however, it is equally possible that they could be used to prescribe a very narrow definition of what that teacher development looks like. A learning continuum for teachers in FE, which uses the National Standards to enforce an NVQ-style system of competence accreditation, would only provide the opportunity to demonstrate achievement of certain aspects of the teacher’s role. It would be an impoverished system if these were considered the only aspects necessary for teachers in FE. Edwards and Usher voice this concern. They warn that by using highly prescribed, predetermined goals: ‘what is constructed as valuable in experience and learning is reformulated, with critical and more abstract forms of discourse being denigrated, dismissed and silenced as “theoretical”, “irrelevant” and “academic”’ (Edwards & Usher, 1994, p. 12). These concerns should not be ignored. If we are to achieve a more critically ‘knowledgeable’, as well as a more ‘skilled’ workforce in further education, we need to ensure that these standards do not become a means of excluding, rather than supporting the development of critical, reflective practice.

Correspondence

Ann-Marie Bathmaker, Department of Educational Studies, University of Sheffield, 388 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2JA, United Kingdom (a.m.bathmaker@sheffield.ac.uk).

Notes

[1] In the report to FEDA (Bathmaker, 1998) we recommended that a Certificate in Education programme might include the following elements of the standards: b1, b2, c1, c2, c3, d1, d2, d3, d4, d5, d6, e4, f1, g1, g3. Key area H did not exist in its present form at the time of our mapping exercise.

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