Further to the letter in last week’s FE Focus about the Institute for Learning (IfL), it is becoming rather irritating to read week after week in either articles or readers’ letters about how unreasonable it is to be expected to pay a #163;68 membership fee.

It might help many of these education professionals to note that most other professional bodies charge rather more. As someone working in the education and commercial sector as a tutor and trainer, I am a member of the Institute of Leadership and Management and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). For both these bodies I pay rather more than the #163;68 proposed by the IfL. For example, this year’s fee for chartered membership of the CIPD is #163;130. The earnings of a professional belonging to these two bodies are not any greater than those working in the education sector.

I fail to understand why many of the education professionals always seem to think that they are a special case and deserve special treatment or conditions. It was the same when they were required to provide details of their continuing professional development, which again most other professional bodies require their members to submit every year. But many of the IfL members felt it was unnecessary and unfair for them to be required to do so.

You get a similar response, too, to Ofsted inspections. There is a view held by many that inspections in schools and the FE sector are unnecessary and there to catch them out.

Why should the education sector not be subject to what other publicly funded sectors have to adhere to and do so willingly, such as the care sector and the NHS? You do not get people from these areas complaining about them being inspected not only by experts in the field but also by lay members.

It is about time these professionals in the education sector accepted that they are not a special case and started to face reality.

Sunita Grigg, React Business Solutions.