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

• lack of administrative support. Many respondents feel that theyhave less time to concentrate on their primary teaching role. Onefactor identified as not helping in this situation is a lack ofadministrative support with teachers/trainers having to bear thisburden: “our admin support is down to nothing because, of course,the assumption is nowadays that as soon as you're given acomputer is that you're an expert typist, isn’t it? So once you’vegiven everybody a computer you can get rid of the secretarial andadmin support”. [Work Based Learning];• emphasis on targets. Some concerns were raised regarding thetarget driven nature of education which can contribute to increasedbureaucracy: “our funding is based on the number of students andits all to do with retaining students … my personal opinion is that, ifthey are not prepared to work then they shouldn’t be here. But ifwe get rid of them … we lose funding”. [Further Education];• management issues. There are some concerns that managementroles are becoming too far removed from teaching, with educationjust seen as a business: “I appreciate the necessity for informationmanagement systems for various forms of analysis but sometimesthere's clearly now an echelon in education that of building careerson bureaucracy and really that’s not what education’s about, itsabout helping people”. [Further Education];• perception of falling educational standards. There is aperception that an increasing number of enrolled students lack thekey skills that teachers/trainers feel should have been taught inschools. Furthermore, the academic requirements for courses areperceived to be falling. These two factors mean that someteachers/trainers in the post-16 sector are spending more lessontime teaching key skills rather than concentrating on their particularsubject area: “I do less engineering work and in depth engineeringwork now, I spend more time doing things like key skills anddeveloping education as opposed to actually dealing with the nittygritty of what I was really employed for in the first place”. [WorkBased Learning].7.23 Interestingly, pay was not identified as the main drawback both in thequantitative and qualitative research. Instead major issues are related toexcessive workload and bureaucracy.7.24 Qualitative findings identified a difference in the experiences of thoseworking full-time and those working part-time or on a sessional basis.Those working part-time perceive that they have less support from theiremployer, less access to training and development and have concernsregarding their tenure of position.71