Earthquakes, cancer and cultures of fear: qualifying as a Skills for Life teacher in an uncertain economic climate

Abstract

The Skills for Life (SfL) initiative followed the Moser Report (1999) and incarnated a Third Way agenda that sought to address England's perceived adult skills deficit. SfL marked a large investment in adult education but also a distinct shift to a more focused, instrumentalist role for Further Education (FE) in England. A new structure of teacher standards and qualifications underpinned this development with its own, newly devised and matriculated knowledge base. Teachers emerged from these new programmes with subject specialisms in Literacy, Numeracy and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). The landscape that these ‘new professionals' have entered is one that suggests the autonomy of colleges within a competitive market, but this disguises a funding methodology that facilitates ongoing centralised policy intervention. In the last two years policy makers have used this funding methodology to shift monies decisively towards 14-19 provision and away from adult education. This article draws on qualitative data from a study into the experiences of pre and in-service SfL teachers in the final stages of qualification. The data explore the impact of these latest movements in the FE market on these student teachers who are qualifying in some of the newest subjects in FE.