The colleges of the future are “built on having fantastic teachers”, says Gavin Williamson - “those who can, teach”.

Of course, the education secretary is right. The age-old slur that depicts teachers as those unable to succeed in industry has, one hopes, been dismissed. Teachers are most certainly specialists in their own right and terms such as “craft” are apt to describe a profession that requires a dedicated honing of skills and commitment to practice.

But that’s where I find a hole in Gavin Williamson’s statement. In suggesting that colleges should be led by “teaching staff who already have experience working in and with industry”, Williamson is in danger of negating the significance of those who choose to see teaching itself as their vocation. It is time that funding was made more readily available for those teachers who wish to develop as themselves as artisans of education. 

Opinion: Want to attract great teachers to FE? Pay them properly

More: Why it feels like déjà vu with Gavin Williamson

Williamson: England to get ‘German-style’ FE system 

The professional development of FE teachers

In his book, The Craftsman, Richard Sennett notes a distinction between the acquisition of skills and the craftmanship of learning: “The ‘skills society’ is bulldozing the career path…people are meant to deploy a portfolio of skills rather than nurture a single ability in the course of their working histories.”

This statement can be pitted in opposition to the government’s focus on building a “German-style FE system”, but it can also be applied to how the sector supports the CPD of its teachers.

Gavin Williamson promises to give colleges the resources to “encourage great people to teach in our great colleges” and to give colleges “the ability to reward them properly”. What such rewards might be is not revealed, but may I suggest it is this: reward teachers through the systematic funding of practitioner-research and by promoting the value of an FE research culture in our colleges.

Three years ago, I started out on my own journey as a teacher-researcher in FE and it is hands-down the best CPD I have ever experienced. Taking up a place on the tailor-made practitioner research programme (PRP) led by the University of Sunderland’s Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SUNCETT) and funded by the Education and Training Foundation, I was given the opportunity to undertake research that was both meaningful to me and my students. For the first time in my career, I realised that I could drive the direction of my own practice and that research didn’t just have to be something that was done to me, but could legitimately and robustly, be done by me.

Professors Maggie Gregson and Trish Spedding challenge the assumption that teachers are “passive consumers of knowledge gained from research conducted by others” and bring to the fore the notion that the way to inspire and empower teachers is by supporting them to develop their practice through research studies that are rooted in the specific and unique context of their own classroom.

Vive la research revolution

There is already a thriving grassroots FE research culture in the UK. Groups such as #FEResearchMeet, #JoyFE and The Bedford College Group Research Network are already leading the way in the support and promotion of practitioner research in the sector. But despite our best efforts, research generated by teachers in FE is still often undervalued and under-represented. Ofsted’s 2019 EIF Overview of Research paper spoke of ‘the relative paucity of research in FE compared with other sectors’ This is simply not true. It is there, bubbling away: you just have to look for it. 

Great teachers aren’t made overnight. Nor do they solely come from those with experience of working in or with industry. Great teachers are made by investing in the continued development of the person themselves, by giving teachers agency and a belief that they can change things from within. Learning must be spoken of as not simply something we teachers facilitate for our students, but as a craft and a habit we undertake for ourselves. 

Like the rest of the sector, I await the release of the White Paper with anticipation and whilst I will welcome a further education system that will “level up skills and opportunities” for its students, I also hope that it invests in the resources it already has; its teaching staff.

Encouraging teachers in FE to see themselves as researchers, and funding their professional development through programmes such as the ETF/SUNCETT PRP, should be a key priority in any revamping of the current system. Teachers in FE colleges must be recognised for their specific expertise and given a platform to share their experiences through research studies that are rigorous, supported and respected. Only then will we have a sector that feels equal to its other educational companions. 

Vive la research revolution.

Beth Curtis is a drama and performing arts lecturer at Exeter College