Further education in a time of change: policy, practice, profession TUI conference 6 th Feb 2016

1. Further education in a time of change: policy, practice, professionTUI conference 6th Feb 2016 Bernie Grummell and Michael Murray Department of Adult & Community Education, National University of Ireland Maynooth.

2. Where is Further Education now? • Sector of education being formalised and professionalism at the moment (FET) • Situated on boundaries of formal/informal education; and second level/higher education • Impact of employability, performativity, accreditation & professionalism on FE? • Nature of knowledge, knowing & knowers? • Social Justice implication for FE ? • training/vocational to new managerialist ethos • reconstitution via performativity & professionalism • impact of technical & operational definition

3. What is your definition of further education?

4. FE – defined by what it’s not? i) FE defined by negative comparative definition • ‘education and training other than primary or postprimary education or higher education and training’. (Qualifications Educ. & Training Act 1999) • ‘education and training which usually occurs outside of post-primary schooling but which is not part of the third-level system.’ (Teaching Council 2011: 2) • Defined by a vacuum or absence – what it’s not ii) Defined by Outputs: list of programmes, providers, awards • Reliant and reactive to other sectors of education, or constrained within outputs frame • No focus on what FE is; actual knowledge claims and distinctive characteristics?

5. Further Education in Ireland – what is it? • Networked and organisational features: ‘linkages with other services, such as employment, training, area partnership, welfare, youth, school, juvenile liaison, justice and community and voluntary sector interests. FE programmes are delivered locally by the VECs & by second level schools.’ (DES 2004) • Economic and social goals of Further Education • Organisational responsibility (ETB structures, operating across second, further and higher education) – impact of different work cultures & education ethos? • Lifelong Learning frame (White Paper, EU) – social cohesion, focus on individual responsibility Employability discourse ‘technical knowledge, core skills and work experience’ (Enterprise Ireland)

6. Vocational and training focus • Vocational & training focus, responsive to market needs and creating employability • Class-orientation, training working class/ marginalised groups for labour force • Brine (2006) high & low knowledge-skilled workers – FE focused on latter group. • Gendered nature of FE – Male-dominated apprenticeships & female service occupations • FE creating alternative route/ access to HE • working with diverse non-traditional students • Recognition of awards & RPL, NQF frame • Explore social justice implications?

7. Current FE staffing & structural issues • Philosophy – adult ed/ education/ training • Organisational structure - myriad of funders, dual govt. responsibility (DES/ DETE) • Staff – 2nd level (VEC) teachers, or recruited from industry, contract tutors (diff conditions) • Privileging practice & experiential knowledge, but lower recognition of this knowledge • growth in casualisation in austerity and neoliberal context; lower status & conditions • Lack of structural co-ordination: spanning FE/ 2nd level/Higher Education sectors

8. Operational definitions & discourses • Performativity focus on outcomes & training rather than learner or learning processes • LLL - consultative rather than participatory approach (i.e. learner charters;‘learner-centeredness’ equals ‘independent learning’) • Def of teacher: expert-led ‘hierarchical, authoritarian & undemocratic’(Connolly 2007) • AE facilitation, learner-centred critical approach difficult to fit into performativity demands & not recognised in professionalism • Knowledge standardised, with subject-centred curriculum

9. i) New Managerial demands of Global era • Structured governance & regulatory reform • Rise of professionalism & performativity • Training for global market in crisis rather than community, driven by risk & uncertainty • Outcomes model as form of social regulation • Less focus on communal & learning aspects • Accountability focus on ‘product not the person…what is counted and countable. A culture of carelessness is created’ (Lynch et al 2012) • Disadvantages the already disadvantaged

10. Responses of Further Education • ‘struggles over the control of the field of judgment and its values’ (Ball, 2006, p.144) • response to accountability & performativity legitimates underlying new managerial logic • Unquestioned assumptions of FE creating jobs for future market needs & structuring 2nd chance learning for marginalised groups • Uncomfortable position of staff - border of FE reality (learners, tutors) & system demands • Counter-hegemonies & resistances – working in/ resisting/ reforming the system, opting out (unfunded), role of representative bodies like trade unions?

11. Your reflections & experiences? • Your knowledge and perception of the further education sector? • Your own experience as a learner ? • Experience as staff working in FE/ or working in other education sector(s)?

12. References • Murray, Michael J., Grummell, Bernie and Anne Ryan 2014 Further Education and Training in Ireland: History, Politics, Practice. (eds) MACE: Maynooth • Grummell, Bernie and Michael J. Murray 2015 ‘A contested profession: employability, performativity and professionalism in Irish further education’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 47, (4): 1-22 • Lynch, Kathleen; Grummell, Bernie and Dympna Devine 2012 New Managerialism in Education: Commercialization, Carelessness and Gender. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke. Second Edition Reprinted 2015.