The Changing Role of the Tutor

The changing role of the tutor

The lifelong learning sector (LLS) teacher workforce is wide and diverse and includes further education (FE) colleges, 6th forms, adult and community learning/personal and community development and learning, offender learning and work-based learning.
There are a number of other terms that you may recognize, which include Learning and skills sector (LSS) and the FE sector. FE teachers, sometimes known as FE lecturers, teach students over the age of 16, and some 14–16-year-olds studying work-related subjects. With the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act came the incorporation of FE colleges and the removal of them from local authority control. This shift brought a greater drive in the direction of a market-led approach with the emphasis on offering appropriate programmes and courses to meet the demands of the market. With the advent of these policies and reforms, the last decade has seen a rapid increase in the number of people attending FE colleges, particularly within the 16–18 age range. This has led to the delivery of subjects in colleges widening and learner cohorts becoming more diverse.
A national framework that Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) developed to support the development of teachers, from their initial training and development, through to enhancing their continuing personal and professional development profiles (CPD), was implemented across the LLS from September 2007. The shift that took place was a
THE CHANGING FACE OF THE LIFELONG LEARNING SECTOR 5 result of governmental legislation that highlighted significant changes to be recognized within what was the sector for post-compulsory education and training (PCET). And the Education Act of 2002 saw the advent of regulations that prohibited anyone from teaching in FE colleges if they had not served a probationary period. The drive was to ensure that learners are only taught by teachers who have received the necessary induction training and who have completed a recognized teaching qualification to cover the essential induction, assessment, monitoring and observation requirements that are considered necessary to teach their specialist subject effectively.
Teachers are, arguably, the most important resource that a student can encounter.
Indeed, tutors can influence whether learning is a positive or not so positive experience for the student. Part of the drive to ensure learners have positive experience can be located in the push towards raising the standards of teaching, this is reflected in legislation whereby teachers offered jobs in colleges and other publicly funded organizations are required to have gained an appropriate teaching qualification. This push was supported by the DfES’s (2002) Success for All: Reforming Further Education and
Training – Our Vision for the Future that set out to produce a qualified workforce by 2010.
The DfES (2004) Equipping our Teachers for the Future: Reforming Initial Teacher Training for the Learning and Skills Sector put forward a policy of reform of teacher development.
While the DfES’s (2006) White Paper FE Reform: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances introduced further plans for the reprofessionalization of the FE workforce, including
CPD for all teachers. The government sees a professional workforce as a key element in realizing its aim to get rid of poor performance in colleges and to enable colleges to respond more effectively to employers’ needs. However, the notion of whether equipping teachers with qualifications makes them ‘better teachers’ is problematic. Questions you may want to consider include:
 Does more qualified mean better motivated?  Do qualifications offer an indication that the teachers’ understanding of the learners’ cognitive and emotional needs is better?  Does being more qualified equate to being more professional?
Some of you may say, yes, that better qualified means a better teacher; and others may argue, no: qualifications do not equate to a better teacher. Whatever your view there is no doubt that being highly competent in both your subject specialist knowledge and pedagogy can lead to best practice in the classroom. As teacher educators we have seen how critical reflection and engagement in key theories can underpin trainees’ and qualified teachers’ practice. This can empower them to be creative in the classroom and to take innovate approaches that raise the dynamics and promote learner engagement and learning. However, we have also witnessed how qualifications do not always equate to being motivated, driven by the learners’ needs, caring, willing to go that extra distance to help learners reach their potential. How can we measure the emotional capital
(Hochschild, 1983) that many teachers give in their lessons. Most of this is invisible and yet it is the reason why many learners achieve their goals, many in the face of
adversity.