Recruitment and Retention in the Post-16 Learning and Skills Sector

• organisational issues – linked to a perceived general lack offunding in the sector overall: “its really the lack of money in furthereducation which doesn’t allow the college to support the staff. It’svery hard to do your job properly or to the standard that you’d liketo do it because you have not got the time. So I think lack ofmoney is the basic underlying problem”. [Further Education];• low pay and insecure terms and conditions, in particular, inrelation to the school sector. Other related issues include localimplementation of nationally agreed pay scales and differences inpaying conditions between departments in the same institution;• poor infrastructure/equipment – this especially relates tosubjects with high equipment costs, such as, manufacturing andengineering: “my main problem is not being able to buy newteaching aids and new resources … you keep getting told to put abusiness case forward for it, you do that and nothing ever getsdone – we haven't got enough money”. [Work Based Learning];• changes in the sector – and the consequent change in clientgroups, in particular the increase in younger students involved infurther education colleges and work based learning providers linkedto 14-16 developments;• limited or unclear career pathways – there is concern that thecareer path for teachers/trainers is limited because the choice iseither to remain in teaching or to become part of the managementteam. With the latter option, teaching hours are reduced, whichsome respondents view as a drawback because of their enjoymentof the teaching aspects of their job: “I don’t think there is much, interms of, career development for a lecturer. If you're a lecturer youare a lecturer, otherwise you become a manager. There is nostructure for career development. If you're a dedicated lecturer, Ithink that the choice between being the lecturer and managementis a large step that not many of us wish to take because you losetouch with what you were originally signed up to do”. [Work BasedLearning];• excessive paperwork and bureaucracy. Many respondentsmentioned high levels of bureaucracy, in particular, staffdissatisfied with their job all mention this issue. Requests forinformation and paperwork are perceived to exist both externally(such as, the LSC, examination boards and OfSTED) and internally(in terms of, student progress and other management information).This leads to a perception that professionals in the sector aredistrusted by government and funding organisations: “we areemployed as professionals, with all of us who work in ourdepartment having been through higher education training andhave degrees … but we are not trusted to be doing a professionaljob, otherwise why would people come in and want to inspect us allthe time”. [Work Based Learning];70