Professionalism without autonomy

Further Education lecturers appear to be stranded in a professional wilderness, deemed to fall short of the virtues of school teachers and lacking the academic credentials of university lecturers. One response to this apparent lack of status was an attempt to re-professionalise the FE workforce, most notably through the work of its first professional body, the Institute for Learning (IfL). This essay charts the ups and downs of the professionalisation agenda in Further Education and its impact on FE teacher