In this paper, I check the ethical pulse of further education (FE) at the moment of its coming of age. Using a philosophical lens, I select and review post-2010 literature, to argue that FE colleges persist in a diminished form within a learning economy. In response to the managerial onslaught, the sector has adopted an ethics of survival, a…

The role of the middle manager has proved to be a difficult one to define due to the fluid nature of the tasks performed and the heterogeneity of understanding that exists for the term. This is further complicated by the differences associated with the context in which individual manager's work. This research, which explores the drive towards…

This article examines the important but under-researched role of the curriculum manager within further education. It reviews managers' perceptions of the role through the lens of the professional-managerial paradigm, with a particular emphasis on the conflict in values experienced by managers trying to implement processes driven by the financial…

Ethnographic research in a further education College (Borough College) between 2000 and 2005 assessed the impact of performance indicators (PIs) within a department teaching GCSEs and A-levels. Research focused on PIs integral to the Learning and Skills Council funding formula, the Common Inspection Framework and newspaper league tables, and the…

Together with the former Polytechnic sector and General Further Education Colleges, Sixth Form Colleges have witnessed major change since the enactment of the Further and Higher Education Act (1992). Change within the post-compulsory education system has taken place on different levels in the UK: at the macro level with change manifest in the…

The Foundation Learning Tier (FLT) is a welcome initiative that aims to support the millions of people with few or no qualifications below level 2 (one GCSE A* to C--a full level 2 is equivalent to five GCSEs A* to C). It is an ambitious project with far reaching implications. It is work in hand and, as such, its central principles are being…

After the 1992 Further and Higher Education Reform Act enabled polytechnics and the qualifying franchised colleges to be renamed universities or higher education institutions, the dominance of the rhetoric of skill development aggravated long-standing schisms between further and higher education about whether or not degree-level courses should be…

Following the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, local education authorities (LEAs) lost control of further education in England. Now, after spending almost two decades out in the cold, from 2010, local authorities are set to become re-involved in the further education system. Given this, this paper takes the opportunity to look back on the…

This article originates from the collaborative efforts of a group of teachers working in a range of PCE establishments across the West Midlands and Black Country, and in the "field" of Literacy education. Drawing on the reflective journals kept by in-service students as part of an Integrated Certificate in Education course, the project…

Further education (FE) has traditionally been a rather unspectacular activity. Lacking the visibility of schools or the prestige of universities, for the vast majority of its existence FE has had a relatively low profile on the margins of English education. Over recent years this situation has altered significantly and further education has…

The Further and Higher Education Act (1992) brought about the incorporation of further education (FE) colleges in England and Wales. This legislation effectively removed the influence and control that Local Education Authorities (LEAs) had over the educational provision of colleges and created a quasi-market in which local colleges were forced to…

This paper revisits the crucial period following the Arab oil boycott of 1973, when the welfare state in the UK finally collapsed along with the heavy industrial base upon which it rested. Unlike the post-war welfare-state "settlement", the new post-welfare market state was imposed by Margaret Thatcher's governments. It was marked for…

This paper provides a critique of the current policy orthodoxy of using markets to organise and structure education provision in England, focusing in particular on Further Education (FE) provision. Starting from the context of New Labour's so-called Third Way, it sets out research findings that indicate that marketisation not only produces…

This neo-Marxian analysis of Britain's Further and Higher Education Act and the White Paper that preceded it shows how adult education funding was steered solely toward vocational qualifications. The impact on local education authorities and nonvocational courses is addressed. (SK)

Drawing on a single case study in the Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education (TLC-FE) project, discussed in the introduction to this volume, this article explores contrasting perspectives of tutors' and students' experiences of a General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ). The "case in point" is an Intermediate level…