If Further Education Teaching in England is a Profession, Training Cannot Be Optional

Further education (FE) in England has spent too long treating teacher training as an optional extra. That stance may have seemed tolerable in a sector historically built around occupational expertise, part-time teaching, and flexible staffing. It is no longer credible.

The FE classroom is now a high-stakes, high-expectation environment in which teachers work with diverse learners, complex vocational curricula, safeguarding obligations, digital systems, and inclusion duties that demand more than subject knowledge alone. A return to mandatory teacher training for full-time FE teachers would therefore not be a nostalgic retreat to bureaucracy, but a necessary move towards professional integrity, quality, and consistency.

This is not an argument to put further barriers in front of industrial specialists thinking about a move to the sector. On the contrary, vocational expertise remains one of FE’s great strengths. The point is that expertise in a trade is not the same thing as expertise in teaching that trade. The sector has long relied on the assumption that good plumbers, engineers, hairdressers, nurses, or digital practitioners will somehow become good teachers by osmosis. Based on my 20+ years as a teacher trainer, that assumption is a myth. It is also unfair on learners, who deserve teaching that is planned, inclusive, responsive, and rooted in sound pedagogy. Subject knowledge is very important, but it is not sufficient. In today’s FE settings, where teachers may spend 25 or 26 hours a week in the classroom and may not always be teaching in their original specialism, pedagogy cannot be left to chance.

The Department for Education’s recent call for evidence on further education initial teacher training (DfE, 2025) and its subsequent publication of the Further Education (Initial Teacher Training) Regulations 2026 which, amongst things, tightened control over ITT course design and provider entry, has reopened long-standing questions about what counts as legitimate preparation for teaching. It has also exposed the weakness of an arrangement in which training content, expectations, and routes into the profession remain uneven and voluntary. If the aim of stakeholders and policymakers is to strengthen the sector’s professional status and improve its public image in the next five years, it must grasp the nettle and re-evaluate the role that effective ITT can play in this trajectory. Those who work in the sector know how vital FE is to building aspiration, enabling social mobility and supporting prosperous, sustainable communities. Public policy should aim to strengthen these ambitions. It can do so by re-establishing the importance of a qualified FE workforce.

The 2026 Regulations announced recently are a welcome step to install additional rigour to a system that Sir Martyn Oliver praised in his 2023-4 Annual Ofsted report as significantly improved. Ofsted’s thematic review in 2025 was also broadly positive of what the ITT industry was doing in the sector, though it observed some teaching that was “outdated”, and some inconsistent arrangements for mentoring. This followed concerns raised by inspectors that some training providers were not following a consistent model of effective practice, with learners lacking fundamental grounding in pedagogy, expert tuition and well-mentored placements. These concerns are justified and demand the sector’s attention, as poor provision lets down learners, institutions and the wider sector.

It does, however, prompt further questions. If the aim of the Regulations is to improve the quality of ITT provision, increase workforce capability and, in turn, raise the profile of the sector so that it becomes attractive to industry specialists, it seems odd – then – that such an investment stops short of compelling teachers to be trained so that they are effective in their roles, like other professions. Notwithstanding that when I was teaching, the public I met thought that every FE teacher was trained in teaching (when they were not), I’d be interested to know if parents today still believe that is the case. If they do, isn’t this an argument for policymakers to rethink the contract with the public?

If FE is a profession, there is something uncomfortable with tolerating a position where young learners may be taught by unqualified teachers, when the point of the 2026 Regulations is to improve quality. This is the ‘statutory question’. Do we believe that FE teachers should be trained, and do we believe ITT makes them better teachers? If the answers to both questions are ‘yes’, where is the statutory question? Nothing has been reported on this issue by the DfE’s Expert Advisory Group, so it isn’t clear if it was part of the discussion, or ruled out at the start. Therefore, the closest we can come to a comparable scenario are the 2007 Regulations, which formalised statutory ITT for the sector (only to be abolished in 2012 under the Lingfield Commission).

The 2007 regulations and what they did not require

The 2007 Further Education and Training Act of Tony Blair’s Labour government seem like a lifetime ago, but I was there when they came in, twelve years after I joined the sector. They are a useful place to start. These regulations introduced qualification requirements for different teaching roles, but they were not a universal mechanism for every kind of FE worker. The regulatory structure distinguished between full teaching roles and associate or part-time roles, and it contained exemptions for teachers already in post before the regulations took effect, as well as separate arrangements for specific categories such as HE teaching and some pre-existing staff. For those that taught under this regime, these flexibilities were real and institutions took full advantage of them.

This point of historical correction matters because a common objection to mandatory training is that it would ‘block’ vocational experts from entering FE. This wasn’t the case in the aftermath of the 2007 regulations – I was a teacher trainer and quality manager at the time with hands-on links across multiple departments, and enjoyed flexibility on how ITT should be organised for different types of teacher – and there is no reason to suppose these barriers would be erected today. In short, the 2007 framework did not impose a blanket burden on all peripatetic or specialist contributors; rather, it linked requirements to role and responsibility, and it allowed for exemptions and transitional arrangements (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS], 2012).

FE has always needed a mixed ecology of roles: guest speakers, industry practitioners, part-time experts, assessors, instructors, and full-time teachers. It is entirely reasonable to preserve flexible entry for industrial specialists who teach occasionally, mentor learners, or contribute specialist input without becoming full-time teachers. But once someone becomes a full-time teacher, the profession cannot credibly maintain that training is optional. No serious profession leaves its core standards to chance. No one would argue that a nurse, social worker, psychologist, schoolteacher, librarian, or careers adviser should be allowed to practise indefinitely without training simply because they know their field well. FE teachers deserve the same seriousness. As sociologist Phillip Elliot (1972) noted more than five decades ago, being professionally qualified is the essence of professional status.

What the evidence says about qualification requirements

In 2012, the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) department conducted an evaluation of the impact of the 2007 Regulations. This was not a celebratory document by any means. It records a mixed picture: the regulations were seen by many as a step towards professionalisation, but implementation was uneven, the system was complicated, and there were concerns about administrative burden and local variation (BIS, 2012). Yet the evaluation does not support the claim that qualification requirements were fundamentally misguided. If anything, it shows that the problem was not the principle of training, but the way workforce policy was designed, supported, and explained. The report identifies value in raising standards and making teaching a recognised professional role, while also showing the limits of relying on voluntarism and inconsistent institutional commitment (BIS, 2012).

That conclusion still matters. It suggests that the sector’s long experiment with optionality did not produce a clear, stable, universally respected professional baseline. When training becomes negotiable, standards become uneven. When standards become uneven, learners experience a lottery. Some get highly trained teachers; others get competent industry people with limited pedagogic preparation; others get a patchwork of goodwill, improvisation, and inherited habit. That is not a professional system. It is a contingency system.

It’s logic is at odds with the tenet of the 2026 Regulations.

When subject knowledge is not enough

The claim that “subject knowledge is enough” persists because it sounds practical. It is not. In reality, teaching is a complex craft involving explanation, sequencing, questioning, assessment, feedback, inclusion, behaviour management, progression planning, safeguarding, and relational trust. The challenge is especially acute in FE because classes are often mixed-ability, vocationally diverse, and socially complex. Teachers may be asked to teach unfamiliar content, work with learners who have missed prior schooling, support English and maths embedding, manage behaviour, and adapt for SEND (Special Educational Needs & Disabilities) and EAL (English as an Additional Language) needs at the same time. Subject knowledge alone cannot substitute for pedagogy in diverse, high‑contact classrooms where full-time teachers work across several disciplines and undertake a multiplicity of roles: instructors, personal tutors, coaches, moderators, assessors, course managers.

This is why professional training matters. It helps teachers turn knowledge into learning. It develops the capacity to diagnose misconceptions, sequence tasks, adapt explanations, and create inclusive environments. It also supports classroom confidence, which is often what new FE teachers lack most. Recent sector discussions repeatedly point to the links between high-quality CPD, teacher satisfaction, retention, and recruitment. The Association of Colleges has argued that teachers are more likely to stay when they see meaningful progression, professional development, and purposeful support (Association of Colleges [AoC], 2021). Evidence from the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) similarly links structured professional development to higher retention, improved practice, and a stronger professional identity (Education and Training Foundation [ETF], 2025a). NFER research continues to show that retention is shaped not just by pay, but by workload, support, autonomy, and developmental opportunity (NFER, 2024; NFER, 2026).

In that context, mandatory teacher training should be seen as part of the solution to workforce stability, not a threat to it. Teachers are more likely to remain in a profession that treats them as professionals and gives them status. Optional training sends the opposite signal: that teaching is a role anyone can do if they are proficient in their subject matter, and that pedagogy is an accessory. That is detrimental to status, retention, and quality.

Retention, recruitment, and shortage subjects

FE’s current workforce recruitment difficulties muddies the issue. NFER’s 2026 workforce report reveals persistent vacancies in construction and engineering, with teacher numbers stable but shortages acute in priority sectors (NFER, 2026a). Construction enrolments have stalled due to tutor gaps, with over half of colleges reporting waiting lists but unable to expand. Engineering and manufacturing face similar pressures, exacerbated by a 70% drop in some T Level foundation starts amid staffing constraints. These shortages are worsening (NFER, 2026b).

This has little to do with initial teacher training (ITT) and everything to do with pay, workload perception, and professional status. FE pay lags schools by around 20% and teachers report dissatisfaction with overtime, progression, and support (NFER, 2026a; AoC, 2025). Gatsby’s 2026 analysis confirms role clarity and development aid attraction of industry experts, countering claims that mandatory training blocks vocational entry (Gatsby Foundation, 2026). Shortages persist despite optional training, pointing to systemic issues like low status and inadequate incentives.

Why this would not deter vocational specialists

There are good reasons why mandatory training for full-time teachers would not deter vocational specialists. For a start, it would clarify the entry route and progression for them. FE has always needed, in the words of the Institute for Learning, ‘dual professionals’: people who combine industrial insight with pedagogic capability. A compulsory training expectation for full-time teaching roles would not remove that possibility; it would legitimise it. Indeed, structured pathways can make FE more attractive to industry entrants because they signify career stability and reduce uncertainty. They tell a practitioner from industry: ‘you are welcome here, and we will help you become effective’.

The real barrier to quality is not training; it is the idea that institutions should be free to decide whether professional preparation matters at all, often based on budget pressure or a manager’s preference. A professional teaching workforce should not depend on the whims, prejudices, or cost calculations of institutional leaders deciding that training is “too expensive” or “not necessary” for their staff. If costs are cited as a barrier, what of the hidden costs of imposing untrained staff on classrooms, only to see them struggle, burn out and leave without fulfilling their potential? That is a human capital waste and the losers are learners and teaching teams that must address the loss.

Nor is this a fictional or unlikely scenario. Retention rates in further education are much higher than in schools. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, after 1 year, 25% of college teachers left the profession (compared to 15% schoolteachers); after 3 years, almost half have left (vs 25% in schools); after 10 years, less than 25% remain in FE teaching (vs 60% in schools)(IFS, 2023). Standards are not just a managerial convenience. They are a technical, professional, and moral matter. An establishment that chooses not to train its teachers is making a statement about the value it places on the quality of teaching.  

The sector should mobilise with one voice to redress this anomaly. Training correlates with stability, resilience and innovation. ETF’s evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee makes clear the links between professional training and improving staff retention and satisfaction (ETF, 2025). Internationally, mandatory ITT in comparable systems improves quality without reducing vocational intake (OECD, 2023).

That point is especially important in a system where leaders may be tempted to prioritise timetable coverage over teacher development. Optionality often looks economical in the short term. However, it creates hidden costs in lower quality, greater inconsistency, poorer learner experience, and more fragile staffing. If FE wants to be taken seriously as a professional sector, it cannot make professional formation discretionary. It is not qualifications that deters industrial specialists; it is the pay, working conditions and general perception of uncertainty triggered by perpetual policy volatility (NFER, 2026; House of Commons Education Committee, 2025; Tully, 2020).

Standards, professionalism, and the moral case for initial teacher training

The moral case is as important as the technical one. Learners in FE are often those least able to absorb poor teaching. They may be retaking qualifications, entering technical fields, balancing work and study, or rebuilding confidence after disrupted schooling. They need teachers who can do more than demonstrate competence in a trade. They need educators who can teach, support, assess, and adapt. To offer them anything less is to accept inequality as a normal feature of the system.

This is why comparisons with other professions are relevant. Society does not usually say that because someone knows how a body works they can be a nurse; or because someone understands human behaviour they can be a psychologist; or because they have been a manager, they can teach an MBA. Each profession has its own standards because each is more than content knowledge alone. FE teaching is no different. Its complexity is practical, relational, and ethical, not just technical.

The current regulatory and workforce debate should therefore move beyond whether training is convenient and ask whether a profession can remain credible when its core qualification is optional. The answer is arguably no. The 2007 regime did not solve everything, and its implementation was uneven, but it at least recognised that teaching in FE is a professional role requiring preparation. The sector should not retreat from that principle.

Conclusion

A return to mandatory teacher training for full-time FE teachers would strengthen quality, improve consistency, and help rebuild the status of the profession. It would not shut vocational specialists out of FE; rather, it would support them to enter and thrive as teachers. The evidence from BIS, ETF, AoC, NFER, and broader workforce research points in the same direction: professional development matters for quality, satisfaction, recruitment, and retention. In a complex FE environment, subject knowledge on its own is not enough. If FE wants reliable quality rather than lucky exceptions, training must be seen not as an optional benefit, but as part of the definition of being a professional teacher. To advocate differently is to accept that FE has different standards to other social practice professions, when any FE practitioner will tell you this is not the case.

By Dr Paul Tully, Chief Executive of FEthink