‘So where do I go from here?’ College mentors' continuing professional development

Abstract

My aim in this short paper has been to draw attention to the potential for professional extension and advancement for which the mentoring of trainee teachers can provide a strong foundation. The context in which I explore these issues is that of the college sector in the UK (variously termed ‘further education’ [FE] ‘post‐compulsory education {and training}’ [PCE{T}] or ‘the learning and skills sector’ [LSS]). The mentoring of new entrants to teaching in this sector has assumed major significance consequent to two important policy developments. These have been, respectively, the introduction by the Government of compulsory training for college teachers in 2001 and, in 2003, a strikingly critical report by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) of certain aspects of such training, following a ‘survey inspection’ conducted during that year. In particular, Ofsted recorded very serious reservations regarding the adequacy and consistency of the mentoring being provided for trainees and recommended that this area be the subject of urgent attention on the part of both training institutions and colleges as workplaces. The deficiencies in subject specific mentoring were viewed especially critically. However, for a number of reasons which I review, the college sector has not presently been able to claim that a large pool of suitably qualified and motivated mentors has been coming forward to take up the challenges presented by the Government and Ofsted. It may be, therefore, that a more active promotion of the further professional opportunities to which mentoring has the potential to open doors should be a new priority for the sector. I contend that such opportunities are in fact both numerous and interesting, and wider awareness of them may in itself provide the kind of incentive to engage with mentoring which seems thus far often to be lacking.

Notes

As will be evident from some of the publication details above, there is currently a measure of what might seem to be inconsistency (illustrative of a syndrome in the UK extending well beyond the literature) which could somewhat perplex readers unfamiliar with the setting described in this paper. The differences seen relate to:

1. The terminology used to designate the college sector—and even those teaching within it. Thus we may find used the descriptions ‘further education’ (FE), ‘post‐compulsory education [and training]’ (PCE[T]) or the ‘learning and skills sector’. Similarly, although practitioners within this sector are increasingly—and most appropriately—referred to as ‘teachers’, the use of ‘lecturers’ remains fairly common.

2. Various Government bodies and agencies, whose titles (and sometimes remit) have changed over time. One example of this is that the Further Education National Training Organization (FENTO), the body which produced the first set of occupational standards for staff involved in teaching and supporting learning in FE, became at the start of 2005 ‘Lifelong Learning UK’ (LLUK).