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This paper reviews the reasons behind the absence of central Government funding for enterprise and innovation at Further Education Colleges (FECs). Enterprise and innovation are, according to conventional wisdom, crucial in rebuilding the UK's economy and providing jobs. In pursuit of this, the Government has provided central funding for enterprise promotion and education for both Universities and Secondary Schools, but not for FECs. The review starts by looking at recent Government policy papers on enterprise and innovation, then briefly considers the current economic characteristics that lay behind the need for enterprise education and innovation. The efficacy of the current proposals is questioned, looking at the concepts concerning the type and level of intelligence entrepreneurs need, also touching on what types of innovations can be expected to increase employment. The paper concludes by asking if elitist or class bias plays a part in the exclusion of Vocational Education & Training students at FECs from central funding for innovation and enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United Kingdom, changes in the policy, funding and commissioning landscape for mental health and well-being are posing opportunities and challenges for adult community learning (ACL). Opportunities include increased recognition of, and funding for, the ‘wider benefits’ of learning, whereas challenges include the risks of ACL provision becoming hijacked by a health and well-being agenda that compromises its primary educational purpose and values. This paper engages with these policy debates through reporting on a study of mental health ACL that employed the capabilities approach along with two other complementary areas of social theory – recognition theories and theories of capitals. Its aim was to explore the means through which ACL impacts mental health and to draw out implications for policy and practice. Findings from focus groups with adult learners and tele-discussions with ACL practitioners revealed three main means through which the provision helped generate interlinked mental health and educational capabilities: providing recognition, generating resources (capitals) and enhancing agency freedom. Elaborating these findings, the paper sets out an argument for interpretation of the mental health and well-being agenda in ACL in terms of a humanistic, liberatory pedagogy that encompasses feminist praxis and draws out policy implications across the areas of ACL and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At the centre of the study on which this article is based, there is a sense of cultural collision. While from a global perspective, Literacy education has an exciting and radical pedigree, the teaching of Literacy in England has been harnessed to an explicitly instrumentalist policy agenda since the introduction of the Adult Literacy Core Curriculum in 2001. This paper sets out to explore the impact of this policyscape on a specific area: the mentoring of Literacy student teachers. The study draws on a qualitative data set from a series of interviews with Literacy mentors from different FE colleges in the English West Midlands. The study found that Literacy mentors are able to promote the holistic approaches that are fundamental to established Literacy pedagogy but that institutional and cultural factors can militate against this in decisive ways. The paper concludes that whilst Literacy mentors have a significant role to play in the education of new Literacy teachers, the motivations and values associated with Literacy mentoring seem to jar in many cases with the marketised cultures in which they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the concept of culture within Further Education Colleges (FECs) from the perceptions of 26 lecturers delivering Business Higher Education Programmes (BHEPs). It offers a brief overview of the history of both Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) in England, and how they have evolved. This then will provide an understanding of the perceived/real differences between FE and HE culture, and whether these two cultures can merge together, or will become 'hybrids,' as suggested by Parry and Thompson. The study will in fact show that the culture of HE in FE (in England) is similar to that of an 'Exclave,' but is developing within this, a culture which might be viewed as an 'Enclave.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade the system for training FE teachers in England has been the subject of almost continuous government reform. Central to the reforms has been the definition of national standards as the foundation for qualifications and training. This paper focuses upon how standards for FE teachers are translated as they move from the worlds of policymakers to those of practitioners. The term 'translation' suggests that many actors are involved in interpreting and using standards as they cross organisational boundaries. Socio-cultural perspectives, from the Vygotskian tradition, are employed to analyse the roles standards have in mediating practice. Although the paper concentrates upon the impact of the introduction of standards on the initial training of FE teachers, the central thrust of analysing how standards are translated from policy into pedagogy has wider relevance because of the current predilection of governments for standards-led reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critique of the current policy orthodoxy of using markets to organise and structure education provision in England, focusing in particular on Further Education (FE) provision. Starting from the context of New Labour's so-called Third Way, it sets out research findings that indicate that marketisation not only produces cultures that relate first and foremost to institutional self-interest but also may be detrimental to quality provision for students. Drawing on qualitative research, the paper explores the impact of quasi-marketisation, focusing on how one college 'successfully' negotiated the funding changes and the competitive context of the FE quasi-market. The paper concludes by looking at the findings through the theoretical lenses of some key concepts from Habermasian theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of financial constraint, this article gives attention to the role of ‘community college global counterparts’ by comparing colleges of further education in the UK with community colleges in the US. It points to similarities between the two and the ways in which budgetary constraints impact on them – and, in particular, on access opportunities for different groups of students, such as those from non-traditional backgrounds. It is suggested that admission is not so much an issue of selection, but one of social, cultural and economic capital, and how this plays out in terms of getting into college, staying in college and differential progression into higher education or higher-level occupations is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws upon research undertaken with 28 teacher education mentors, managers and trainee teachers within the SW Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (CETT) in 2008, following the introduction of the new revised Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) standards. The first part of the article locates and contextualises the policy context in relation to the school and further education (FE) sectors. Two separate and distinctive models of mentoring practice are delineated, the first model as a source of formative support for trainee teachers, and the second model as a tool for the assessment of competence. The article concludes by suggesting that the danger and indeed unintended consequence of separating out these functions of mentoring is that an unnecessary dichotomy is created that dislocates coherent teacher practices from one another. It argues that what is needed is a sustained period of stability in the sector. This would leave a space for CETT professionals and others to promote those practices that will make a difference not only to the work of teacher educators but to the work of staff and students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This seminal study investigates the use of the EFQM Excellence Model® in the UK Further Education sector. Following initial interviews with Senior Managers and Quality Consultants, an online survey was sent to Principals and Senior Managers in all Colleges across the UK to critically investigate the relationship between the use of the Model and 'culture change'. The results indicated a positive correlation between use of the Model in FE Colleges and improved financial status, more transparent mechanisms to balance stakeholder expectations and improved mapping of processes and compliance. However, there was no significant difference in the achievement of top inspection grades or in raising staff morale. There are also significant differences in the use of the model in different regions of the UK. Therefore, transformational leaders should use the EFQM Excellence Model® over a long term to embed its underlying principles of Total Quality Management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Together with the former Polytechnic sector and General Further Education Colleges, Sixth Form Colleges have witnessed major change since the enactment of the Further and Higher Education Act (1992). Change within the post-compulsory education system has taken place on different levels in the UK: at the macro level with change manifest in the structural relationships between the State, the sectors of the post-compulsory education system and individual institutions; at the meso level with changes that have taken place within the Sixth Form College sector; and at micro level within individual institutions through the redefinition of roles and responsibilities. This research was concerned with an investigation into how teachers in Sixth Form Colleges viewed the practice of 'leadership'. It is a term that has been promoted by Central Government as it has re-engineered the education system and presented as a critical factor in raising performance levels within the education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate how knowledge of different kinds is put to work in workplace education programmes for adults with low skills and adults with higher skills. A novel framework, which has moved beyond narrow conceptions of 'transfer' to concentrate on different forms of knowledge and the ways these are recontextualised as people move between sites of learning, was used to examine three work-based programmes in Canada. The aim was to compare the Canadian results with those obtained from six work-based exemplar programmes previously analysed according to the framework in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that the seven elements in the framework hold some explanatory power across a wide variety of workforce upskilling programmes as well as across learner skill levels and at the same time help to focus in on four kinds of knowledge recontextualisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]