When is a Teacher not a Teacher?

When is a Teacher not a Teacher?

It is interesting that the Leader of the National Union of Students calls on government to require HE teachers to be trained and qualified as teachers in the same week that the BIS publishes its Govean Review of teaching qualification for FE. FE - the neglected middle child of the education system - does not (according the the Interim Review) require either a professional body or qualified teachers.

Should Higher Education Teachers be required to gain a teaching qualification?

If HE retains control over what and how lecturers are qualified to teach - so that depth and passion for a subject are translated into enthusiasm for sharing that passion with others – qualifications can only be good.  But the argument here seems to be about securing the quality of the education product that students are purchasing. This misses the point.

If teachers need to be qualified, why should a teacher of an 18 year old not need to be qualified?

Why should the teacher of a 14 year old need to be qualified when teaching in schools but the teacher of the same 14 year old when in an FE college, need not be qualified. This seems to be what the revocation of the Further Education Teachers’ Qualifications (England) Regulations 2007 would imply.

It is a perfectly formed case study in policy incoherence. One department, BIS, publishes two reports on the same day, on the same subject, but draw two very different conclusions.

Teachers in FE do not need to be qualified:

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/further-education-skills/docs/p/12-670-professionalism-in-further-education-interim

Teachers in FE who are qualified make better teachers:  

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/further-education-skills/docs/e/12-693-evaluation-fe-teachers-qualifications-regulations