The first thing was that a few weeks ago I turned on the radio one morning and there was an item about FE. That in itself is remarkable for more than one reason. These days it seems that the only stories the Today programme thinks fit to start your day with involve the imminent demise of half the population at the hands of fanatical terrorists in the name of a compassionate Allah.

The other unlikely aspect was that someone at the BBC had heard of further education. Perhaps one of the programme’s executives had driven past an unsightly huddle of huts on the outskirts of town and been told that no, this wasn’t a place of incarceration for the criminally insane, but a centre of learning for the local population.

On a similar tack, I can’t forget the annoyance I felt when working in Putney a few years ago and reading the observations of a well-known novelist and BBC producer - Nigel something, his name was - about my college. On one side of Putney Hill, he wrote, was a fine school (fee-paying, grammar, smart uniform) for girls; on the other stood, as he termed it, “something that calls itself South Thames College”. Or to put it another way: one building was where the real education took place; and if you must enter the other one, be sure to wipe your feet as you leave.

So, despite the fact that this was eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, if the BBC was talking further education then I, for one, was ready to listen. What could it be that had caught their notice? Was their bigwig interviewee about to reveal some dramatic initiative that would put FE on the educational map at last? Or had the politicians finally decided to do something about the fact that college lecturers endure the workload of a navvy for the pay of a porter?

Not quite. Well, actually, not at all. In fact, what our FE luminary (aka John Harwood, chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council) was telling me was: “You are crap!” And it wasn’t just me. Nearly half of the colleges, or rather the courses that they provide, were crap, he said.

Of course, being a bureaucrat, Harwood used rather more diplomatic - not to mention long-winded - language. What he actually said was that “40 per cent of the provision across the whole sector is just unacceptable in the terms of the quality of the learning and the provision which takes place”. Crap, to you and me.

And crap it turned out to be in more ways than one. As such stories do, this one ran and ran. When the dust settled, it was found that our boss of bosses was being more than a little creative with the English language. That 40 per cent described as “unacceptable” turned out to be provision deemed “satisfactory” by the inspectors of the old Further Education Funding Council.

It appeared that what Harwood was attempting to do was a muscle-flexing, chest-banging, me Tarzan type of exercise: “satisfactory” is not good enough for the tough nuts at the LSC. Only “absolutely flippin’ marvellous” will do for us.

This brings us neatly on to the second remarkable thing. Because two weeks after the broadcast, the ultimate FE quango responded in a very unusual manner. It wasn’t actually the LSC’s chief exec himself who spoke up this time but his colleague (some might say his boss) council chair Bryan Sanderson. “We’re sorry,” the boss of the boss of bosses said in an interview. “The words chosen weren’t very smart ... we ought to be more careful with our labelling.”

So now you see what I mean about odd. Doesn’t Bryan Sanderson know that nobody in the upper echelons of education ever apologises for anything? Particularly for rubbishing the workforce. When challenged, the trick is to bounce back with an even more damning indictment - perhaps reminding us that while 40 per cent of courses might be unacceptable, at least half of that number are little better than diabolical. Teachers are all masochists at heart - why else would they choose to do the job in the first place? They need regular bouts of ritual humiliation to keep them up to scratch, not whining apologies. That only serves to encourage their bad old ways.

Can you imagine former chief inspector Chris Woodhead ever begging forgiveness? Or the last education secretary David Blunkett eating humble pie? Or Margaret Thatcher stopping to pat little children’s heads rather than snatching the milk out of their hands?

So please, no more of these strange happenings from the Nigels at the BBC or the big cheeses at the LSC. We’re not used to this kindness kick. At least you know where you are with a bucket full of the brown stuff.

Stephen Jones is a lecturer at a London FE college