This paper draws upon two research projects to evaluate a decade of reform concerning the professionalisation of further education teachers, and discusses future prospects under the new coalition government. It suggests that policy initiatives to regulate further education (FE) teachers have taken place within an industrial or occupational…

Over the last 10 years the system for training further education (FE) teachers in England has been the subject of almost continuous government reform. Following a critical Office for Standards in Education report in 2003, a new set of standards and associated regulations were introduced in 2006 by the then Labour Government to replace the earlier…

Over the last few decades, governments of all political hues have introduced measures to regulate the development of the professional status of teachers in England. In the first part of the article, we compare and contrast how teachers from schools, colleges and universities are regulated by the state and the nature of the ITT qualifications and…

This paper is a critique of the initial teacher education (ITE) of further and adult education teachers in the UK. It argues that the employer-led, national standards model in the UK is not the basis for ITE and professional development because it takes no account of learning in the workplace, disregards the multi-specialist and professional…

Drawing upon two research projects, this paper analyses changes affecting the in-service training of adult literacy, numeracy and teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages in England. There are many issues raised in this paper, particularly how in-service teacher education programmes in England can meet the diversity of learner need, how…

In the last ten years further education has moved from a sector characterised as being in a state of 'benign neglected' by central government to one which has grown in importance to policy makers and in turn has become more and more regulated. Below I describe and critically analyse these changes, focusing on the initial training and professional…