REPORT ON THE TRAINING OF FET COLLEGE LECTURERS … Final_Report_on_Training_of_College... ·...
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PROJECT: EAP 75
ENGLAND-AFRICA PARTNERSHIPS IN HIGHER EDUCATION SUPPORTING ACCELERATED AND SHARED GROWTH IN SOUTH AFRICA
REPORT ON THE TRAINING OF FET COLLEGE LECTURERS IN SOUTH AFRICA, ENGLAND AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL
CONTEXTS
January 2008
Prepared by Dr Joy Papier, FETI Institute, UWC (with input from Prof. Simon McGrath, Nottingham University)
This document is an output of the EAP (England-Africa Partnerships in Higher Education) project funded by the UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) for the benefit of the African Higher Education Sector. University partners in the project are the University of Nottingham, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and the University of the Western Cape. The views expressed are not necessarily those of DIUS, British Council or the Universities concerned.
List of Abbreviations APL Accreditation of Prior Learning
CERTED Certificate in Education
CETTS Centres for Excellence in Teacher Training
CPD Continuous Professional Development
CPUT Cape Peninsula University of Technology
DANIDA Danish International Development Agency
FE Further Education
FET Further Education and Training
FHEQ Framework of Higher Education Qualifications
HRD Human Resources Development
ITE Initial Teacher Education
LLUK Lifelong Learning United Kingdom
NPDE National Professional Diploma in Education
NVQ National Vocational Qualification
OFSTED Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills
QTLLS Qualified Teacher in Lifelong Learning Status
QTS Qualified Teacher Status
TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training
UKZN University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
UWC University of the Western Cape
VET Vocational Education and Training
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Table of Contents Page No Executive Summary 4
Introduction 6
Background to vocational lecturer development in SA 6
Training and development of FET college lecturers in South Africa 7
Training and development of FE college lecturers in England 11
A snapshot of European and Scandinavian systems 19
Conclusion 20
References 21
Annexure A 22
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report on FET college lecturer training is an output of a project sponsored by the British Council. A
collaborative project which extends across three universities – the University of the Western Cape and
the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa, and the University of Nottingham in England, it is
intended to add to the body of knowledge which might assist the introduction of formal national training
programmes for FET college lecturers in South Africa. Indications are that the national Ministry intends
to shortly set out national standards for vocational teachers, in the light of which models of training
provision will be considered.
This research component reports on current South African university teaching programmes that could
be identified as being directed at college lecturers, as well as the training of vocational teachers in
England, the latter information being obtained through a project visit to training programmes for FE
college lecturers in the English Midlands. In addition, a Danida sponsored report1, the product of
collaboration between a Danish consultancy and South African counterparts, provides valuable insight
into the Danish and other European instances/models of vocational teacher training. These combined
sources of information offer useful comparatives which might assist policymakers and implementers in
South Africa in their deliberations on suitable routes towards professionalisation of vocational teachers
in FET colleges.
Our study of international examples of vocational lecturer preparation indicates the following:
• The move towards professionalisation, standardisation and certification of FET college lecturers
is an international phenomenon;
• Reform in international college systems has been incremental and long-term, with frequent
reflection and revisions which are still ongoing;
• Qualifications and programmes must be designed to suit the needs and context of vocational
college lecturers;
• An in-service model of training and development of college lecturers is prevalent in England,
while Germany and the Netherlands have pre-service vocational teacher qualifications;
• In England a university-college training partnership model has been employed, with the
university largely in a quality assurance role and where most of the delivery takes place at the
1 As a researcher in the Danida project I include insights gained through that study, however the research report is not yet in the public domain.
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college. In a few instances FE colleges offer their own qualifications (that conform to national
standards) and which are ‘badged’ by a university. College lecturers also do qualifications
offered by other certification bodies like City and Guilds;
• In Denmark there is a dedicated national Institute for Vocational teacher training (DEL) which
also conducts relevant research in the vocational sector;
• Subject didactics in vocational subject specialisms is an important component of the preparation
of a vocational college lecturer – in England, pedagogy and theory are applied within clustered
learning sets for subject area groupings;
• Mentoring and supervision by qualified and experienced mentors are necessary features of
lecturer preparation in both the English and European systems. In Denmark mentors undertake
a mentoring qualification to qualify as mentors;
• Vocational college lecturers enter college teaching from various routes and hence a variety of
routes toward certification have to be considered;
• Incentivisation is an important element of recruitment and retention in the English college
lecturer development programmes;
• Peer networks eg. CETTS in England encourages sharing of best practice, partnerships and
collaborative quality assurance;
• Parity of esteem and articulation between school-teacher and college lecturer qualifications is
still an issue in England and is the subject of much debate – inconsistencies still exist across
training programmes offered by various institutions;
• The Level 5 Diploma (of which Level 4 is a higher education Certificate) course in England is
unitised and credits can be accumulated. As a part-time course it is done over two years, or full-
time in 1 year;
• Continuous professional development units are offered throughout the year to keep lecturer
knowledge and skills updated.
While conditions may vary greatly across the different education contexts in England, Europe and
Scandinavia, it is clear from this report that vocational systems across the globe have grappled with
many of the same issues that manifest in the South African FET college sector. The report shares
some of these comparative experiences in the belief that they will find resonance in emerging systems
and serve as a sounding board when implementation decisions are required to be made.
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Introduction
This report surveys the provision of formal training programmes to FET college lecturers at the present
time, and builds on an earlier survey initiated by a Danish consultancy in August 2007 that investigated
capacity building interventions offered to college lecturers in South Africa by higher education and
private providers.
For this report the writers attempted to find additional instances of formal training programmes for FET
lecturers to supplement the information that was already available through the Danish study. To avoid
repetition of the evidence previously obtained, a summary analysis of the training programme provision
in South Africa is provided for purposes of comparison with English institutions and individual summary
institutional details annexed as Annexure A. The comparative English component of this report
describes the experiences of Universities and FE2 colleges in the British Midlands with regard to
vocational educator training and is set out in the body of this report. Two higher education institutions
and two FE colleges in England were visited to gain an understanding of qualifications and
programmes for teachers in vocational colleges. Salient elements of Scandinavian and European
systems are included for purposes of comparison.
Background to vocational lecturer development in SA
South African FET college lecturers have faced a barrage of policy changes in 13 years since 1994,
which for the sake of convenience are briefly referred in this section, but which South African readers
familiar with this context may skip over. A government White Paper in 1998 set out a rationale for
transformation of the vocational college sector and a development path similar to that undertaken by
colleges in England in the 1970’s. First came the rationalisation and merging of an inequitable
assortment of 152 technical colleges in 2000, to 50 multi-site and diverse FET colleges intended to
cater for the wide ranging needs of those seeking employment, returning to learning, re-training,
vocational preparation and access to higher education. Major recapitalisation of colleges for much
needed infrastructural overhaul was followed in 2006 by extensive curriculum reform and the phasing
out of outdated college programmes.
2 The terms ‘Further Education’ (FE), ‘Further Education and Training’ (FET), ‘Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) are used variously in different countries to refer to vocationally oriented education that takes place in vocational colleges/instituitions.
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In a process which mirrors that of English FE colleges some years ago, college lecturers were on the
31st October 2007 required to transfer their contracts to College Councils, a move towards giving public
colleges more autonomy and public accountability. College Councils are presently contemplating the
implications with regard to conditions of service and related employer responsibilities.
College lecturers in the old dispensation were not required to have specific teaching qualifications.
Their technical qualifications and years of experience were given equivalence for remuneration
purposes, using pay-scales applicable to school-teachers. Where provincial departments of education
made it a requirement for lecturers to obtain a teaching qualification, a few higher education institutions
offered diploma programmes which have since become outdated. The national Department of
Education indicated in 2007 that it would shortly publish a new framework of qualifications recognised
for teaching in FET colleges. This will entail a curriculum development process in higher education
institutions that choose to offer such qualifications. Where information on college lecturer training
programmes at universities and universities of technology could be obtained, it shows that these
institutions have in the absence of national vocational teacher training programmes been offering
adapted versions of school-teacher preparation programmes based on Norms and Standards for
Educators in schools (2000).
Training and development of FET college lecturers in South Africa In South Africa, teacher education is the responsibility of higher education, and takes place in
faculties/departments of education in Universities or Universities of Technology. College lecturers in
technical fields have through the years been recruited from industry and usually possessed technical
qualifications and wide workplace experience and knowledge. Many lecturers in academic subjects like
Language, Mathematics or Science entered colleges with school teaching qualifications but little
industry experience. Since the skills legislation of 1998 where colleges offer sector specific training,
lecturers have also been acquiring Assessor and Moderator qualifications offered by private providers.
Prior to the new suite of teacher qualifications registered on the National Qualifications Framework,
some higher education institutions offered Diploma courses to FET college lecturers, but these largely
fell away once new qualifications were designed against the Norms and Standards documents of 1998
and 2000. Since then, college lecturers have either undertaken qualifications intended for school
teachers, or some universities and universities of technology have adapted their teacher qualifications
to the more vocational context of FET colleges. By and large there is little uniformity in how teachers for
the college sector are prepared. The national Ministry of Education is currently designing a framework
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of recognised qualifications for teachers in FET colleges, which will usher in a new era of curriculum
development for those higher education institutions that wish to offer them. To date education in the
different sectors – schools, colleges, universities – has tended to be conducted in silos, where the
sectors have little knowledge of the needs, imperatives and concerns of the other, hence little
experience of vocational teaching exists in traditional university faculties of education. Although the
Department of Education (2004) has engaged in research on human resource needs in the FET
college sector there has not really been a coherent strategy for addressing the development of college
personnel, and such quantitative data as does exist (HRD Reviews 2003; 2008) is still based on
statistics dating back to 2002. Indeed the latest HRD Review (2008) states that “the lack of strong
system-wide data for the more recent period is itself a finding of this review chapter” (p.275).
Research done by a Danish-South African project (2007) investigated identifiable training programmes
in public higher education institutions for FET college lecturers and showed that there is a growing
awareness of the need for such programmes, but also for guidance with regard to appropriate
offerings. Where FET lecturer training is offered by universities this exists as an ‘add-on’ to the
traditional teacher education programmes that these institutions provide, and has to be made viable. As
is common to universities internationally, teacher education in South Africa occupies low status and
generally receives the lowest funding in the academy. In South Africa, universities have come through
a merger process in the last ten years, faculties of education have been rationalised, and colleges of
education which previously specialised in teacher education for school teachers, have been
incorporated into higher education or closed. Thus university Faculties/Schools/Departments of
education as they are variously known have constantly been driven by funding norms and incentivised
programmes (like Maths and Science education) that attract the highest funding, rather than catering to
the needs of teachers across the board.
The imperative to train teachers for schools, and the successive policy changes that have affected the
school sector, have compelled teacher training institutions to focus heavily on the needs of schools,
while FET colleges have remained in the background, something of an ‘unknown quantity’ in many
higher education faculties. Given the limited options for obtaining relevant teaching qualifications (upon
which promotion and remuneration is based for college lecturers), colleges have approached
universities and requested that they construct qualifications for their sector. This appears to have
occurred on a larger scale in cases where external donor agencies have been willing to sponsor such
development and delivery, as in the case of Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Western Cape, where Danida has
funded college interventions offered by the university. Where funding for such initiatives has been
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limited, programme development for college lecturers has been left in the hands of one or two staff
members in the faculty.
Summary of current university3 offerings to FET college lecturers (see Annexure A)
The section which follows provides a snapshot picture of the kind of training being offered by South
African universities to college lecturers, while summary data is annexed hereto as Annexure A. As the
largest cohort of FET lecturers who need teaching qualifications are those currently teaching in
colleges, the most appropriate nationally recognised qualification at the present time which
acknowledges the vocational sector as a possible target, is the National Professional Diploma in
Education (NPDE). An undergraduate in-service programme, this qualification was designed for
upgrading of school teacher qualifications, using the Norms and Standards for Educators published by
the Ministry of Education. The NPDE was intended to be an interim qualification to bring under-qualified
teachers in schools up to qualified teacher status (QTS), or REQV 13. Teachers were therefore
awarded the first 120 credits of the qualification in recognition of their teaching experience in schools.
Universities have, through partnerships with the provincial Departments of Education and each other,
taken on the substantial task of providing the NPDE to those in-service school teachers who require it,
a process which has taken longer than initially envisaged. Universities have had to adjust their delivery
of full-time teacher education to an in-service mode with contact times either in blocks or over
weekends depending on the site of delivery, and have had to be flexible about their requirements. More
recently the NPDE with a vocational orientation has been offered to college lecturers.
From the investigation done to date, it appears that education faculties have in the main offered to
college lecturers an adapted version of the NPDE qualification intended for the upgrading of
schoolteachers. While universities have made attempts to accommodate the college context, this is
often not immediately overt except perhaps in the case of UKZN where FET policy and global issues
appear clearly in the course outline. The motivation for offering college lecturer training appears to be,
in the case of universities of technology, the historical association of the ex-Technikons with training
programmes for technical lecturers. In other cases a motivating factor was the request of FET colleges
sponsored by donor funding to acquire teaching qualifications for their lecturers.
The focus in university education programmes is on the pedagogical/theoretical skills which lecturers
need to acquire to become competent teachers in a vocational context. However, the CPUT convener
3 The term ‘university’ is intended to refer to all registered public higher education institutions including universities of technology. The latter’s equivalent in England would perhaps be the ‘new universities’.
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pointed out that college lecturers with various subject specialisms enter the programme and expect to
be taught pedagogy and methodologies which are contextualized and relevant to their specific field (eg.
Hairdressing, Business Studies, Engineering). While university lecturers are appointed as needed to
teach pedagogy within the various subject specialisms, this is often not financially viable. For instance,
if there are small numbers of lecturers within specific disciplines it is expensive to provide a specialist
subject didactics lecturer for each group. Vocational teaching areas are therefore clustered for
purposes of method courses in an attempt to reduce teaching costs. A course convenor in KwaZulu
Natal acknowledged that there is a need for technical subject matter upgrading (requested by college
lecturers) and indicated that there are thoughts about the university’s collaboration with, for example, a
university of technology in that province in order to develop this aspect. From the reading lists and
assignments in the course content, it appears that the courses set high academic standards and
readings look fairly challenging perhaps for lecturers who have been out of an academic arena for
some time, or who came into teaching directly from the working environment.
Since the NPDE is an in-service programme, universities have offered the course in small blocks of
contact time (5-10 days) with follow up visits of 1-2 days. In the urban areas where college lecturers
travel from relatively close proximity to the university, the course is run on Friday evenings and
Saturday mornings throughout the academic year. Where course participants live further afield from the
University campus, as in the case of UKZN, university lecturers travel to the college campus for block
periods of contact time.
The numbers of lecturers who have enrolled for the NPDE are relatively small and universities are not
convinced about the viability of these courses in the absence of government or donor funding. A
course convenor questioned the lack of recent data on the number of lecturers who needed this course
or other educator training, as his faculty could not put major resources and effort into developing such
programmes without being sure that there would be sufficient uptake. In his view, the lack of individual
college lecturers applying for the programme was the result of insufficient incentive to do so. He
mentioned the absence of any ‘ministerial imperative’ for lecturers to have a particular teaching
qualification and thought that such a directive would be necessary before lecturers would take up
teaching qualifications in larger numbers. Another comment from a convenor was about the lack of
clarity (certainly in higher education he averred) about what exactly FET colleges were meant to be and
what they were teaching, which might inform what they needed to be trained in. Furthermore he
questioned who the vocational trainers of college lecturers were likely to be, as there was little
experience in higher education of this sector. In his view higher education institutions were ‘feeling their
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way in the dark’ in regard to training of college lecturers as very little direction was being given. By way
of comparison I now proceed to consider training of Further Education (FE) lecturers in England.
Training and development of FE college lecturers in England
A comparative element was added to the review of current training interventions offered to FET college
lecturers in South Africa through a visit to Nottingham and an investigation into FET lecturer training
programmes offered at institutions in the English Midlands. Colleges in the UK became autonomous in
1992, which is the stage at which colleges in South Africa are now in their development. Generally, FE
in England exhibits many of the trends seen in South Africa regarding corporate governance, flexibility
and responsiveness, professionalisation and certification of college staff. Reform in FE has taken place
over a period of about 15 years, with frequent reflection and revision of systems and policy. Some
colleges are now sufficiently capacitated and have earned the confidence of universities to be able to
offer initial teacher education for college staff. Whereas previously there were no entry requirements for
lecturers in FE colleges, lecturers now have to be qualified and have literacy and numeracy to at least
Level 2.
Awards in teacher education exist at Levels 3-7 of the qualifications framework (see below). While
upgrading of subject knowledge and pedagogical skills are understood to be developed separately and
incrementally, there is the acknowledgement of the importance of mentoring in subject specialisms.
Entry requirements for FE college teacher qualifications are fairly open and flexible. There are separate
qualification standards for those intending to teach in schools and for teaching in colleges, which
manifests some tensions within the system.
Since 1992, there has been a growth of leadership, governance, management and support cadres all
requiring staff development. This has contributed to the development of increasingly ambitious and
sophisticated staff training functions that articulate between Initial Teacher Education, Continuous
Professional Development, Human Resources and quality functions (including performance
management). The challenge to staff development is that of the huge diversity within single providers
and systemically. Recent developments include the establishment of an Institute for Learning and CPD
portal, the emergence of a renewable licence to practice and acknowledgement of the importance of
incentivisation (money/time) for staff who participate in ITE or CPD. Inspection and funding regimes
have also played significant roles. More recently Centres for Excellence in Teacher Training (CETTS)
provide networks for organisations involved in Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional
Development in the FE (Learning and Skills) sector, in an attempt by government to encourage best
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practice, peer review and partnerships. The system has by and large been strengthened by growing
collaboration encouraged by the state, indications of which can be seen in the section which follows,
however it may be too soon to tell how sustainable these efforts are likely to be.
The following representation of the UK Higher Education Qualifications Framework is given for
reference purposes when the programme offerings are discussed in more detail below:
FHEQ level NQF Equivalent Qualification types
Certificate 3 Induction/orientation type programmes, short courses,
Certificate 4 Certificates of higher ed
Intermediate 5 Foundation degrees, bachelors degrees, diplomas of higher ed and further ed, higher national diplomas, other higher diplomas
Honours 6 Bachelors degrees with honours, graduate certificates and graduate diplomas
Masters 7 Masters degrees, postgrad certificates, postgrad diplomas
Doctoral 8 Doctorates
New College, Nottingham
The project team visited New College Nottingham and discussed with the Coordinator of Continuing
Professional Development, their training of lecturers for FE colleges. New College is one of the few
colleges in the country that offers initial and continuing professional development for college staff which
it delivers itself. Through an accreditation with Nottingham Trent University, a higher education
institution with roots as a ‘polytechnic’, the College delivers its own qualifications which are then
badged by the University. The focus is to move lecturers in FE to Qualified Teacher Status (Lifelong
Learning sector) however there is as yet no parity of esteem or portability between school-teacher and
college-teacher qualifications (Brand, 2007; Simmons & Thompson, 2007). The emphasis of the most
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recent OFSTED report on teacher training for FE (2006) had been on lecturer professionalism,
mentoring and support, which the college has taken seriously in its training programmes.
According to government regulations lecturers were given 5 years to achieve teaching qualifications, as
the following statement indicates:
The government is committed to having a fully qualified FE workforce and expects each college and provider to ensure that all their teaching and training staff achieve, or are working towards, qualifications by not later than 2009/10. Tony Fazaeli, Deputy Director, Dfes, Improvement Group, 15 June 2007
In terms of the Framework, Level 4 gives lecturers the status of Associate Teacher and Level 3 is
preparation to teach, a minimum requirement for teaching in an FE college. The Level 3 course is a
pre-higher education induction/orientation programme for lecturers who don’t necessarily want to
achieve full lecturer qualification status. Level 3 consists of 30 hours of study, whereafter lecturers can
move into the Level 4 Certificate and then into the Diploma at Level 5 for possible QTLS (qualified
teacher in the Lifelong Learning sector) status. The level 5 programme at the college is offered as an
in-service programme.
Lecturers in different subject areas are clustered into ‘learning sets’, it being impracticable to work with
each of the specialisation areas individually. Lecturers then have to apply pedagogy and theory within
their own subject areas. However, each learning set has a subject specific mentor who is a specialist in
that field and who has to conduct observation of the lecturer’s practice lessons and support their
learning. Subject specific mentors have to have both a teaching qualification and be qualified in the
field of vocational specialisation.
Training programmes have to be delivered against the LLUK (Lifelong Learning UK) standards, a
nationally approved set of standards for FE lecturer preparation published in September 2007.
Students on the LLUK programmes ordinarily enter with relevant vocational qualifications. The LLUK
standards are intended for teachers in the Lifelong Learning/Skills sector and cover six domains in
which ‘professional knowledge’, ‘professional practice’ and ‘professional values’ are set out as
outcomes. The 6 domains are:
• Professional values and practice
• Learning and teaching
• Specialist learning and teaching
• Planning for learning
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• Assessment for learning
• Access and progression
The LLUK standards can be developed in terms of optional units depending on a lecturer’s
specialisations. Lecturers are required to do 30 hours of CPD per year to maintain their QTS. In
addition, all lecturers are required to have at least Level 2 literacy and numeracy. Assessor units can
be taken as part of the qualification or as stand alone units. Lecturers are also given 70 hours of
remission time per year in order to attend to their studies which may take place over evenings or
weekends.
The offerings in the Level 5 programme are unitised, whereby lecturers can accumulate credits over
two years part-time. As a pre-service qualification it is a 1 year full-time programme whereafter
students could transfer to the University. Colleges offer a wide range of courses to their students – from
‘Skills for Life’ to 14-19 year olds, essentially to cater for those students who need to acquire literacy,
numeracy – to the academic school programme and occupational/vocational courses. This results in a
wide variety of students, youth, adults and workers for retraining, which has implications for lecturers
who may need specialist units in order to teach on particular programmes.
Continuous professional development units are offered to lecturers throughout the year. These courses
are funded by the local authorities and lecturers are not required to pay for courses or for diplomas.
The head of the School for Teacher Training within New College has a Directorate of Quality which
looks after staff development, quality and teacher training. It is the development and training arm of the
college where all teacher training takes place. Lecturers from other colleges also attend courses here.
However, it is almost a ‘virtual’ centre, with a small core staff, but mentor teachers and facilitators in the
teacher training programme are contracted according to the needs of the lecturers in the programme
and the learning sectors. All the students are in-service lecturers and most materials for the course are
available on-line.
West Notts College
This college is located about 30 miles outside of Nottingham in a relatively poor working class
community which was a former coal mining area. College leaders cite low self esteem, poor
employment prospects, high teenage pregnancy, anti-social behaviour and low participation post 16
years, as problems that confront them in this community. In spite of this the college boasts numerous
successes, amongst which is a retention rate of 92% and being in the top 10% of colleges nationally. A
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new modernised site is planned for the college in the near future, as its current buildings are beginning
to require expensive maintenance. The student body consists of 14-19 year olds, adults, higher
education students, employers and international students, with the 19 years and older group being the
largest at 14 000 headcount.
The college has about 1107 employees, of whom 356 are permanent teaching staff and 270 are
‘sessionals’ (contract staff). There is a high level of administrative support with 411 support staff.
Lecturers are required to have one vocational level qualification above the student level that they are
teaching. However, the college encourages the acquisition of a degree in the subject specialism of the
lecturer, where such degrees exist. The college does not deliver qualifications for lecturers itself.
However, it does offer foundation degrees in partnership with the university. Colleges depend on the
Learning and Skills Council for its funding stream. Skills for Life (fundamentals) are embedded into
vocational programmes.
The Heads of School are curriculum team leaders. Lecturers are appointed on 6 months probation and
are required to do the ‘Preparation to Teach’ course at Level 3/4 if they do not have a teacher
qualification. All teaching staff have to achieve the LLUK qualification by no later than 2009/10, as per
the 2007 regulation. Some lecturers have gone the CERTED route and have sought qualified
schoolteacher status. The 30 hour entry level award is 6 credits and is based on units of learning. 75%
of the units relevant to teaching are mandatory and 25% are optional. If the 6 credit award is done as a
stand alone course, students can apply for APL (accreditation of prior learning) for access into the
CERTED qualification. Assessors of NVQs are expected to do this Certificate. 5 days are allocated in
the time-table as cross-college staff development days where various learning and teaching themes
are addressed. Coaching and mentoring of new staff members are given high priority in this institution.
Quality assurance of qualifications
The Level 4 Certificate is the first year of the Diploma awarded by the University, and the Level 5
Certificate is the second year. If these two certificates are done as stand alone qualifications, they are
awarded by City and Guilds, a private quality assurance body.
The leader of the QTLP team at the college’s job is to analyse college trends, national trends and
gather benchmarking data. He also conducts student surveys for information and feedback to staff.
Classroom observations are conducted by his team, whereby lecturers are graded. This grading is then
moderated across colleges using the same criteria that OFSTED, the external moderators use.
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Colleges are subject to an annual review, inspections and peer reviews. They have instituted a robust
self regulation process and regular teaching and learning conferences are held to encourage sharing of
best practices and to update staff on current thinking in FE. To this end, Centres for Excellence in
Teacher Training (CETTS) introduced in April 2007, facilitate the sharing of innovative ideas and
excellent practice through an infrastructure for networking at all levels. In the East Midlands, 22
organisations participate in the East Midlands CETT, of which 11 are FE providers.
Nottingham Trent University Clifton campus
Nottingham Trent University was previously a Technical higher education institute or Polytechnic and
as such is now considered a ‘new university’. This institution offers a more comprehensive range of
undergraduate education programmes than the older research universities such as Nottingham
University. The latter is a higher level academic research institution and offers educator qualifications
(to school teachers) at Level 7 (Masters Level), which made it difficult for them to offer the Level 5
programme to FE college lecturers as it meant offering university programmes at a much lower level
than had previously been the case. The increasing prescriptiveness of standards for FE teacher
training and the trend towards colleges offering their own programmes badged by former polytechnics
have, inter alia, not inspired research universities to continue FE teacher training programmes.
The coordinator of teacher training provision at Nottingham Trent University confirmed that the
University is obliged to design their courses for college lecturers against the LLUK standards which
they regard as quite prescriptive. The standards are aimed at learning to teach in the lifelong learning
sector and the Diploma is offered to full time students. The level 5 qualification is a diploma not a
degree. School teachers doing teacher training at university take the Level 7 degree programme,
hence lecturers who qualify in terms of the LLUK at Level 5 are not easily transferable to school-
teaching and would have to go onto the level 6 CERTED teacher education programme and then to
Level 7. CERTED historically was a qualification in Education for prospective school teachers who
lacked a first degree but which went into decline in the 1980s as degrees became the requirement for
school teaching. This route into teaching has survived for vocational teachers who would usually enter
with a Level 3 vocational award and do the CERTED to get onto the teaching track. The university uses
mentor teachers who are subject experts and have a teaching qualification, to support and guide
students. There is considerable peer mentoring for in-service lecturer trainees.
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University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is the leading ranked research university in the East Midlands. Although
such universities have had little involvement in the FE sector historically, Nottingham has a particularly
strong adult education tradition, having the oldest chair in that field in England. It was through its
training of adult educators that Nottingham became involved in provision of a PGCE-equivalent
programme for FE lecturers in the 1990s.
However, as of 2007, Nottingham has discontinued this programme. At the heart of this decision was
the difficulty that a postgraduate-oriented School of Education had with complying with the latest LLUK
regulations. Whilst Nottingham Trent was able to offer the range of programmes outlined above,
Nottingham was unwilling to offer programmes at level 5 as it believed that its teacher training provision
for colleges should continue to align with provision for schools and universities. Such provision is
offered at level 7 and constitutes 1/3 of the credits towards a Masters programme. This is aligned with
current policy statements that seek to move all teachers in the schools sector to Masters graduate
status over time.
Although Nottingham no longer offers initial teacher education in the FE sector, it does continue to offer
MAs and EdDs in this field. As a leading research university, it is well positioned to offer such
programmes and to continue research in the sector. However, there are concerns that its loss of initial
teacher education provision in this area might undermine its “higher” level activities.
Summary of FE lecturer training in England
FE colleges in the UK offer a wide range of full-and part-time courses to learners including school exit
level programmes, university entry level programmes, in-service and professional development training
to employed persons, short and long training programmes to pre-employed and unemployed youth and
adults, certificates and diplomas in an array of disciplines. In this regard the post-compulsory sector or
Lifelong Learning sector as it is called in more recent literature, caters for a vast spectrum of learning
and development needs that potentially exist in a community.
The implication of this is that college lecturers teach in a variety of disciplines and have backgrounds in
industry or more academic contexts, with a combination of vocational and academic qualifications.
While FE in the UK has had a much longer evolution, the drive towards standardisation,
professionalisation of college lecturers and the acquisition of teaching qualifications mirrors similar
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developments in the South African FET scenario. In spite of the many positive developments in
vocational education (in England and South Africa), it is worth noting the concerns signalled by
scholars reflecting on FE policy change, as in the following paragraph.
Recent scholarship on UK vocational education (Simmons & Thompson, 2007; Brand, 2007; Spencely,
2007; Young, 2006) points to the many contestations and challenges which have arisen as a result of
decreased government funding for FET, increased centralisation of curricula, bureaucratic processes,
competing stakeholder interests, too many bodies active in the field and so on, much of which South
African FET practitioners will identify with. Simmons and Thompson (2007) critique the reconfiguration
of the public FE system in order to make it ‘subservient to the perceived needs of the economy’ and all
that this move entails. Tighter financial controls have given rise, they hold, to a new managerialism
where the emphasis is on ‘performance, productivity and cost’ rather than negotiation and trust. With
the cost of training moved from the provider to the trainees and their employers and burdensome
regulatory requirements upon universities, the writers worry that universities could withdraw from FE
lecturer training and thus impoverish the training options available to colleges. This kind of critique,
which may appear harsh, is indicative of the pitfalls emerging systems elsewhere may need to take
cognisance of.
Former polytechnics in the UK which have become the ‘new universities’, have largely carried the
training of teachers in the post-compulsory sector. Through partnership projects with FE colleges the
training of college lecturers has been able to take place at college sites, with the qualification being
quality assured and awarded by the university partner. An alternative source of training has been the
awards offered by colleges under the accreditation of awarding bodies like City and Guilds.
The quality of training provided to FE lecturers came under scrutiny by Ofsted (2003) which voiced
concerns about a lack of pedagogical support for lecturers in their specialist vocational subjects and
that they needed guidance in ‘how to’ teach these. In spite of a concentrated focus on raising the
qualification levels of FE teachers (still in progress), parity with school teacher qualifications has not yet
been attained, and articulation between teaching qualifications for the LL sector achieved at FE
colleges and those attained at universities is limited. Indeed, the decision of research universities (such
as Nottingham) to withdraw from initial teacher education in the sector points to the potential of FE
lecturer training falling further behind in status terms.
Standards have continued to be problematic, issues raised by universities and colleges being too many
outcomes, at the same time too restrictive and too wide-ranging to be useful and so on. These
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challenges will not be unfamiliar to a South African audience but they are instructive for the
qualifications still to be developed for the training of college lecturers. In this regard the recent Danida
research and other international reports on provision of FET lecturer education are valuable in
highlighting experiences from the Danish and European systems.
A snapshot of European and Scandinavian systems
Vocational systems of education and training in Europe and Scandinavia are well established and have
respected traditions. VET (vocational education and training) teachers, as they are called can be either
‘general subject’ teachers with tertiary qualifications who teach in vocational colleges, or vocational
subject teachers who have the requisite vocational qualification and relevant work experience. The
latter then acquire teaching qualifications as a ‘top up’ in-service qualification, though in some
European countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands there are also pre-service vocational
teaching qualifications. Specialist VET teachers choose teaching in vocational settings already at the
outset of their career, much like a school teacher might do, and their qualifications include integrated
vocational subjects and pedagogy or more general education subjects. Much attention is paid to the
subject specialisms that vocational teachers will teach.
In Germany there are examples of a four year university programme that combines vocational subjects,
pedagogy and workplace exposure through industry internships. A strong element of mentoring or
coaching by more experienced colleagues is also evident in this system. It is noteworthy that in Europe
and Scandinavia there appears to be less of the ‘low status’ stigmatisation that applies to vocational
education in South Africa and the UK. Some disparities do arise though, between significant numbers
of professional craftsmen who are employed directly into colleges and whose pay scales may be lower
than their counterparts who are academically qualified as teachers as well.
In the Swedish system potential vocational teachers are also required to have 3 years of work
experience although it is reported that there are sometimes difficulties in recruiting candidates who
satisfy this requirement for particular trade areas. The obvious reason for this is that such persons can
obtain higher salaries in the workplace and are not attracted to the lower salaries in the education
sector. In the Danish system there is a national Institute for the training of in-service vocational
teachers and for conducting related educational research. The training covers a well-rounded spectrum
of pedagogy, theoretical and practical aspects of teaching in a vocational setting, given that teachers
come into the programme already having relevant academic qualifications and in the case of vocational
subject teachers also at least 5 years of appropriate workplace experience. The part-time, modular
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programme is normally conducted over three semesters and all new VET teachers are required to
complete the programme within the first two years of their appointment. Supervised teaching practice is
built into the programme and is undertaken at the college at which the teacher is employed, under the
tutelage of an experienced mentor. Mentoring and supervision by specifically trained mentors is
regarded as an integral part of the development of competent VET teachers.
Conclusion This report shows considerable similarities between the South African and English vocational education
systems, particularly in terms of policy and systems development. While the vocational college system
in the UK has evolved over many years, there still exists familiar debate around the purpose/s of
vocational education, its articulation with higher education, parity of esteem with academic schooling
and the like. College educators in the UK have walked the path that their counterparts in South Africa
are yet to tread with regard to professionalisation demands and standardisation of college teacher
qualifications, increased college autonomy, increasing managerialism, performance management and
so on.
From the aforegoing it is clear that there are many lessons to be learned, experiences to be shared and
pitfalls to be avoided. In addition there are the innovations in vocational teacher development that well-
oiled European systems display, for example, integrated general and vocational subject specific
training programmes and the value of strong mentorship in the workplace for developing good
vocational teachers. South Africa is in the enviable position of being able to plan using the hindsight of
other nations as it designs a robust, rigorous system of educator development for college lecturers that
can take them into the future with confidence. It is imperative that raising the bar for college lecturers is
accompanied by raising the stakes and the rewards associated with a recognised profession. The
professional college lecturer pathway has to become desirable and respected so that new traditions of
teaching for skills development and lifelong may become established.
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References Brand, A. (2007). The long and winding road: professional development in further and higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31:1,7-16 Department of Education. (2004). Further education and training colleges: The new FET professional - The challenge of staffing and responsiveness in FET colleges. Research report. Fisher, G., Jaff, R., Powell, L. & Hall. G. (2003). Public Further Education and Training colleges, in HSRC (ed.) Human resources development review 2003. Cape Town: HSRC Press. HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council) (2008). Human Resources Development Review 2008: Education, Employment and Skills in South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Nielsen, S.P. (2002). The experience of the Nordic Countries and Germany. Joint Cedefop-ETF Conference, European Training Foundation, Aalborg. OFSTED (2003) The initial training of further education teachers: a survey. London, Ofsted. OFSTED (2006). The initial training of further education teachers: findings from 2005/6 inspections of courses leading to national awarding body qualifications. London, Ofsted Research report. Pukelis, K. (2002). Vocational Training: Research and Realities. http://www.vdu.lt/Leidiniai/ProfRengimas/2000-4en.html Simmons, R. and Thompson, R.(2007) Aiming higher: how will universities respond to changes in initial teacher training for the post-compulsory sector in England?, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31:2, 171-182. Spencely, L (2007). Walking into a dark room – the initial impressions of learner-educators in further education and training. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31:2, 87-96 Young, M. (2006). FET college teachers: a knowledge-based profession of the future. Perspectives in Education. 24(3),153-160
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