If, like us, you are curiously attracted by prime numbers,
and share the media’s fascination for anniversaries, you may have noticed that 1 April marks the 17
th anniversary of the creation of the first England-wide Further Education sector, the date when the Conservative-created Further Education Funding Council came into being.
At or around the time of that anniversary we’ll know which government we have entrusted our future to. Coming into effect on the same prime-time date, we’ll also be seeing the early effects of Labour’s radical Machinery of Government changes which, 17 years on, in a sense dismantle the FE sector as we have known it.
For all the talk about parity of esteem for vocational education, and of the need for ‘transformation’, policy-makers’ educational worldviews often appear rooted (irrespective of political party) in a teacher and classroom centred view of the world that may have suited the 19th Century, but doesn’t adequately suit today. And, especially, it doesn’t help address what we might call the 'Train To Gain' challenge, which is so central to the widened Learning & Skills sector’s mission, and so crucial to economic recovery and future job sustainability.
Following recent announcements, we’re prompted to wonder just what David Cameron’s 'brazenly elitist' ambition for teachers in "the noble profession" would mean for FE in a world whose economies are now so influenced by IT-driven globalisation – a world presaged by the Further Education Funding Council in its early creation of Learning & Technology Committee, chaired by Sir Gordon Higginson. This committee, tasked to identify keys to FE flexibility, made 'a new role for teachers' its number one priority. The FEFC, to their credit, provided the QUILT development programme to help existing FE teachers absorb the implications of the Information Society’s arrival, and in due course the JISC Regional Support Centres (RSCs) were created to reflect another of the Higginson recommendations.
Nowadays anyone who has ever observed commuters conducting their e-business from a seat in a train knows for sure how much e-technology has come to influence the things we do over these 17 years! We believe the workshops of the future – physical and virtual, training or real, in China Chichester or on the East Coast main line – will be shaped by the increasing mobility and ubiquity of technology.
Just in time learning opportunities, supported by smart practitioner tutors well equipped (in terms of personal skills and the resources available to them), still need to be developed as a unique selling point if FE is to get full benefit from the emerging technologies recently profiled in the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report 2010 as having near-term implications for education, as well as the world of work which FE is there to support.
Putting a well-paid 2:1 graduate, even armed with an interactive whiteboard, in front of each conventional class would certainly be a valuable contribution to any education sector but in FE it would be an expensive and partial response to the FE sector’s need for investment.
Policy Exchange (the think tank said to be favoured by David Cameron) recently claimed in its critique of the Building Schools for the Future programme that ''Government has failed […] to provide firm evidence that ICT raises attainment and failed to provide good suggestions of how to change practice to support teachers using new technology in schools''. This may or may not be true but we are unsure how helpful, even if possible, it is to separate out and evaluate technology inputs’ contribution in isolation from all the other elements in a complex FE world.
Across FE the JISC Regional Support Centres (with national partners like Becta, LSIS, NIACE and ALP) have worked hard for the past ten years to help organisations apply 21st Century technology to what they do, in ways that reflect the complexity of the real world and real-world education; to ensure that learning is stimulating and inspirational and that technology earns its keep in overall organisational flexibility and efficiency. Reflecting these goals, RSCs are working on the ground to support Becta’s Generator initiative with FE colleges and other skills providers.
The next prime number anniversary of FE’s creation, its 19th, is in April 2012! We’ll be hoping to see government (whichever) aiming to attract high-calibre technology-savvy recruits to a Learning & Skills sector in its prime, to join the many already there – with or without a 2:1!
Written by: John Gray, ex FE Manager and RSC Associate; William Pickford, JISC Advance.
references
Donovan, K. & Atwere, D. (2000) QUILT: A case study in the impact of a staff development programme. ALT-J 8, 67-74.
Available at: http://repository.alt.ac.uk/343/1/ALT_J_Vol8_No3_2000_QUILT_%20A%20case%20study%20in%20the%20imp.pdf
Fearn, H. (2010)Technological gizmos to revolutionise study
Retrieved 22nd January 2010 2010 at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=410082&c=1
FEFC (1996) Report of the Learning and Technology Committee : Chairman, Sir Gordon Higginson
Available at: http://planar-research.org/Documents/Higginson%20Report.pdf
House Of Commons (2010) Train to gain: Developing the skills of the workforce Available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmpubacc/248/24802.htm
Information Society Forum (1998) Newark Declaration : The Convergence of Lifelong Learning and Work Reorganisation as a Key Element for Job Creation in the Information Society: Information Society Forum
Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/archives/ISPO/policy/isf/documents/declarations/NEWARK-DECLARATION.htm
Quarmby, K. & Fazackerley, A. (2009) Building Blocks - an investigation into Building Schools for the Future: The Policy Exchange, Ed.Anna Fazackerley
Available at: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/pdfs/PX_Building_Blocks_Web.pdf
Watt, N. (2010)Tory plan to raise teaching standards by denying funds to weak graduates
Retrieved 21st January 2010 at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/17/cameron-tories-teaching-standards-prestige