Wellbeing, policy and practice among further education teachers

Abstract

Adult providers as well as further and adult education colleges are a major part of an economically driven society improving skills for developing careers as well as for new interests and jobs. Further education (FE) colleges deliver courses that not only meet the demands of school leavers but also serve the wider community in terms of delivering higher education courses allied to universities. FE advocates the concept of ‘inclusiveness’, in terms of, for example, disabilities, ethnicity and race. This complies with the Equality Act (2010), which points out that facilitating learning conditions for the vulnerable is essential. Additionally, staff should be appropriately trained to deal with issues such as the wellbeing of learners and day-to-day teaching (e.g. The Wolf Report, 2011; Ofsted, 2014; and the Society of Education and Training, 2017). However, this may be hampered by lack of resources to deal with such issues (Field, 2015). It is suggested there may be repercussions on the wellbeing of teaching staff and this may have negative effects on work-family balance. The Education Support Partnership (2017) advise that the effects of exhaustion/burnout should not be underestimated and this is the focus of this paper. The paper argues that there is sufficient evidence to show that what policy intends to achieve is unachievable given the current climate of FE. One effect is that teachers may feel pressurised. How exhaustion and burnout is dealt with must be a joint effort between policy makers, researchers, teachers and managers.