An FE principal has hit out at the Scottish Executive’s proposals for training college lecturers, which he fears could lead to mandatory registration with the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
Speaking at a college graduation ceremony in Edinburgh, Howard McKenzie of Jewel and Esk Valley College said this would “destroy the flexible adult learning environment in which so many young people have thrived.
“Such regulation and an exam culture for staff would mean that my colleagues would be made to teach using the very styles and discipline regimes that many of our younger students left school to get away from.”
Mr McKenzie said that these developments “strike at the very core of the relationship between schools and colleges” and added: “I would congratulate the local schools that are in partnership with the college on a job well done, something of which all of us should be proud. I hope it will continue into the future but, somehow, I doubt it.”
The Scottish Further Education Unit, which already has a role in the professional development of FE staff, has also come out against external regulation.
