An Analysis of the Effects of the FENTO standards on the Teaching Profession
A Tribute to Carole Flynn RIP
Dr. Mike Hammond
Carole Flynn
Carole Flynn came late to the FE teaching profession after a career in industry. She was liked and respected by colleagues and students at the two FE Colleges where she worked, before she progressed to a post in a West Midlands University in the school of education. She was a true professional, who loved her work, and who would in due course have made her mark in HE academia, as much as she had in FE. Tragically, these Academic prizes were not to be, as on holiday in North Africa during the Easter vacation 2004, Carole suffered a massive heart attack from which she subsequently died. In dying as she did at only forty-five years of age, education and FE teacher training was robbed of a superb practitioner, and her many friends were robbed of a warm hearted and beautiful human being. In November 2001, Carole gave me an interview for an MA dissertation in Quality Management that I was studying (and subsequently passed) at that time. Although time moves on, and never more so than in FE policy, much of what Carole had to say then, is as pertinent now, as it was then. The common sense and optimism with which she viewed life is explicit within her words, and never ceases to leave me reflecting on what educational triumphs there might have been for her had she lived.
Abstract
This paper analyses first, how the policies of neo-liberalism and the ‘new right’ have affected management and control in FE. Having defined the neo-liberal model, the paper examines how the FENTO standards share a neo-liberal philosophy of control and measurement. The standards are examined, and compared with the competence philosophy associated with Fordism and the new right. The paper argues that FENTO standards share many similarities with NVQs and TDLB ideas of competency. The paper then goes on to argue that the competence ideas embodied within the NVQ philosophy are incompatible with the professional concepts needed in successful teacher training as there remains a reliance on what might be termed a professional ‘gut’ instinct exercised by a teacher trainer in the assessment of a particular teacher. The paper also suggests that FENTO standards may negate against TQM, if people remain wedded to the standard, rather than to seeking to outperform the standard. The paper concludes by looking from a 2001 perspective on how the FE sector might have changed (or not) and comparing this with the author’s own experience of the sector in 2004.
Neo-Liberal New Managerialism
The roots of the neo-liberal phenomenon lie as far back as 1968, where the future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was declaring that there was too much Government (Thatcher, 1997). The themes that were to dominate her premiership were honed during the Conservatives period of opposition to the Wilson/Callaghan Government of 1974-79 (Russell, 1978; Gamble, 1988). Grocott (1989) points to an almost messianic desire by the Thatcher Government to reduce the role of the state, and break up the power of the Civil Service, he states:
“With the arrival of Thatcher came a great determination to do what was necessary to rescue Great Britain from the perceived national decline for which the civil service was partly to blame. Reducing public expenditure, eliminating waste, rolling back the frontiers of the state, lifting the dead hand of bureaucracy, cutting the public payroll were the objects of a crusade given authority by a clear electoral victory and leadership of a peculiarly visionary and dogmatic kind.” (Grocott, 1989, p119)
Reducing public expenditure was central to Thatcherism, and to do this, it was perceived that business style new managerial techniques were needed (Clarke, 1991; Hall, 1998; Levitas, 1986). There was also a belief in the ultimate power of market forces that would determine both supply and demand without interference (Clarke and Newman, 1997). In the public sector, the presence of professionals working in a semi- autonomous way, distorted the effects of the ‘market’, and diverted money from the pockets and purses of tax payers into a self perpetuating oligarchy. This power structure had to be broken down, leaving the market to control supply and demand (Pollitt, 1993). This breaking down of professional oligarchy, was sought to be achieved through new managerialism, where quantitative targets and the attributing of costs to outputs were combined with ‘transparent’ accounting systems, to make the work of professionals more identifiable and measurable (Dunleavley and Hood, 1994). For many professionals within the public services, including teaching, this situation led to endless rounds of cost cutting, down sizing and the loss of professional status within their work environments (Gleeson, 1996, p102).
Neo-Liberalism and FENTO standards
The concept of a professional according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is that they are:
“Engaged in one of the learned or skilled professions, or in a calling considered socially superior to a trade or handicraft. Professional (middle) class members of the learned and skilled professions regarded collectively.” (Simpson and Weiner, 1989 p573)
If one accepts that a professional has a higher status than other jobs and occupations, then professionals should be able to expect a certain degree of autonomy. It was this concept, that was an anathema to Thatcherism, and adherents of this philosophy believed that it was in the lax management of professionals, that waste, duplication, poor quality and inefficiency were to be found, and this must be stamped out (Pollitt, 1993). When the remit of OfSTED was expanded to cover FE, in the Learning and Skills Act (2001), the ‘New’ Labour Government were deemed justified in retaining a neo-liberal model of control in FE, by the examples of poor teaching and management that they discovered there (OfSTED, 2001a; OfSTED, 2001b; OfSTED, 2001c; OfSTED, 2001d; OfSTED, 2001e).The OfSTED Chief inspector commented at the time on Radio 4:
“We’ve inspected five colleges. Of those five, two have been given the tag of” inadequate”. In three of the five, the management was considered to be less than satisfactory and across all five colleges we found a rather large and in some cases disturbing amount of teaching which is less than satisfactory.” (Tomlinson, 2001)
The view of the then Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) went much further, he stated:
“We reckon about forty per cent of the provision across the whole of the sector is just unacceptable in terms of the quality of the learning and the provision which takes place. And of that, we think about five per cent of the sector is appalling” (Harwood, 2001a)
The political fallout from the comments by Harwood (2001a) did lead to a partial apology from Harwood (Harwood, 2001b). Before this date however, the Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO) had been conceived with a view to raising standards within FE, as the Government believed that the quality of some FE provision was unsatisfactory (DfEE, 1998). The initial ambition in 2001 of FENTO was to achieve kite mark status:
“FENTO is now ready to kite mark qualifications, and training programmes that are based on any of the FENTO standards. UK-wide institutions and organisations who seek approval for qualifications, accredited CPD or training programmes based upon any of the standards developed by FENTO can apply for kite marking.” (Price, 2001)
The fundamental purpose of FENTO though, was the production of standards for what appears to be every major function within the FE structure. The most interesting standards, and the ones that Carole had to deal with, are the teacher training standards. The purpose of standards for teacher training was described as:
“To provide an agreed set of standards that can be used to inform the design of accredited higher awards for FE teachers, validated within the natural qualifications framework or by higher education institutions or awarding bodies. It is likely that there will be different qualifications to meet a range of possible needs. To provide standards that can be used to inform professional development actually within FE. To assist institutional based activities such as recruitment, appraisal and the identification of training needs.” (FENTO, 2001a, p1)
An example of these standards from e4 of the FENTO standards for teachers’ states:
“Provide Personal Support to Learners. To do these teachers: provide opportunities for learners to raise personal issues affecting their learning. Create formal and informal opportunities to listen and respond to the views and feelings of individual learners. Maximise opportunities for learners to have access to specialist support as necessary. Know the limits of their own competence as tutors to deal with personal issues. Maintain close and effective links with colleagues and other professionals in order to help individual learners resolve their personal problems. Act as advocates for, and mediate on behalf of individual learners when problems arise. Provide appropriate mentoring to individual learners.” (FENTO, 2001a, p26)
They continue:
“This requires critical understanding and essential knowledge of: counselling skills, ways of networking with other professionals and stakeholders to help individual learners. The potential to do harm if teachers exceed their own level of competence. Sources of specialist counselling and other professional support, and how to access them” (FENTO, 2001a, p26).
The standards are very prescriptive, and seem to seek to cover every eventuality, almost like a checklist of what (in the opinion of FENTO of course) makes a good teacher. I asked Carole if there was an agenda in relation to the FENTO standards, she concluded:
“I think there is. I think there’s an agenda. I think the philosophy if you look at it from the touchy feely point of view is that it is about ensuring consistency between different education sectors, and I think that it was long overdue, because the problem about what teacher training was about then, [was that] it was too fragmented. You had Universities offering their own schemes you know, all similar outcomes, but having dealt with two schemes, very different in their respects. So I think the philosophy was about an increasing professionalism, to get consistency. I think that was the overriding thing, but I also think there was a hidden agenda which has primarily come over from the School sector, which was partly I think, partly from QCA. I do know, that when the FENTO standards came [in] about two years ago, they had been written, and they [FENTO] were actually told to rewrite certain areas. And the areas that were asked to be rewritten were things like inclusivity, standards and quality. I think I heard that QCA and the School sector saying that these are going to be the template standards for FE teaching. You’ve got to build them up, those areas because they don’t match across to what you tell us we should do in the school sector.”
Carole’s view of consistency is vital I think to understanding FENTO. Teachers were to be trained the same, with a view to unifying training with the Schools Sector at some point. The standards were also developed for the corporations of FE colleges in the UK. FENTO (2001b) concluded:
We have written these standards to put governors, chairs and clerks quickly in touch with their responsibilities and the skills and knowledge they need. They are called ‘benchmark standards’ because they are designed to help governors, chairs and clerks benchmark their work to common standards.” (FENTO, 2001b, p4)
FENTO standards were also deemed to be suitable for Government appraisal, development and recruitment, and included both roles and responsibilities (FENTO, 2001b, p4-5). Principals and managers within the FE sector are also to be subject to the FENTO standards:
“A national professional qualification for College Principals due to be introduced in 2002, will become a requirement for all newly appointed Principals from a date yet to be specified. There will also be an induction programme for new Principals during their first two years in the job and an improved modular leadership programme for serving Principals. All programmes for Principals will be based on FENTO management standards” (FENTO, 2001c, p2)
It is argued that Carole’s analysis is bourn out to some degree by FENTO (2001c) in that the undeclared aim of FENTO at that time would be to produce an FE version of the National Professional Qualification for Head teachers (NPQH). With the benefit of hindsight, it appears that they failed, as the mantle for developing qualifications for FE College Principals has been passed to the FE Centre for Leadership Excellence. In developing their management competences, FENTO also considered the management competencies for further education (SFEU) and the standards for head ship in schools in Scotland (SQH) (FENTO, 2001d, p2). So FENTO describe the purpose of their management standards as being:
“To lead the organisation within the education and training context. To set and achieve objectives for the organisation, and so continuously improve the quality of learning and standards of achievement.” (FENTO, 2001d, p5)
FENTO (2001d) goes on to argue that successful management in FE leads to five key outcomes, defined as:
“Performances by employees, who have pride in their work, are innovative, imaginative, quality conscious and flexible in their working practices that command respect and reflect best practice. Achievements, which meet or exceed national benchmarks. Plans likely to secure a successful future for the organisation, the local, regional, and national economy and which evidence a high degree of collaboration and partnership. Operational targets that are generally met and sometimes exceeded.” (FENTO, 2001d, p5)