Baroness Sharp calls for united status of QTLS and QTS

Monday 20 September 2010

Addressing guests at an Institute for Learning (IfL) awards ceremony on 16 September 2010 for members who had successfully completed Professional Formation to gain Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) or Associate Teacher Learning and Skills (ATLS), Baroness Margaret Sharp of Guildford called for equal status of QTLS and Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), because young people need expert vocational teachers from further education, whether they learn in school or further education settings.  

Baroness Sharp said, “Education at all levels depends crucially upon the quality of its teachers. The further education sector is no exception, and I am amongst those who have welcomed the tightening of training requirements in the sector in recent years. Indeed, the sector requires that its teachers prove their competence both as good teachers and as good professionals within their own vocational or subject sphere.

“Given this double professionalism, it really is extraordinary that there is still no alignment of qualifications between the school and FE sectors. The Skills Commission in which I participated earlier this year called for a unified approach for QTS and QTLS to be introduced as quickly as possible for all teachers of young people, and within the coalition I shall be doing my best to make sure that this advice is heeded."

Lisa Houghton, an advanced practitioner specialising in childcare at Chelmsford College, recently attained QTLS status and was one of the IfL members invited to receive her award at the ceremony. She said, “Gaining QTLS recognises my professional status, and brings us in line with schoolteachers, which is vitally important. I am a firm believer that reflection should be at the heart of every teacher’s practice; QTLS is a great route for doing this and to make you a better teacher.”

Paul Dodd, a tutor at HMP Altcourse who also attained QTLS status, said, “Professional Formation and the required process underpins the professionalism of teachers and trainers working in the lifelong learning sector. It has enabled me to record formally and gain acknowledgement for the significant degree of work I have invested in my aspirations to teach. I truly hope that IfL maintains the rigour of the formation process to ensure that teachers and trainers working in the sector are suitably prepared and that this preparedness is acknowledged by sector employers and organisations.”

IfL’s chief executive, Toni Fazaeli, said, “It is fitting that this ceremony for awarding the professional status of QTLS and ATLS should be held in the House of Lords. Teachers and trainers in further education and skills deserve recognition in the highest places for their expert teaching of some five million learners a year. Gaining QTLS or ATLS is rigorous and requires reflection and improved teaching practice to an exacting standard. And rightly so. Every adult or young learner deserves teachers and trainers who help them learn effectively and successfully. We cannot afford to waste the talents and potential of learners, which is why it is essential that teachers and trainers are up to date in their vocational or subject area as well as what John Hayes, the further education minister, describes as the invaluable ‘aesthetic and craft of teaching’.”  

Sue Crowley, chair of IfL, said, “I congratulate the teachers and trainers from our sector’s rich and diverse settings of further and adult education, uniformed services and voluntary and community organisations who have gained QTLS or ATLS. IfL’s role is to support teachers and trainers to be the best that they can be – from starting out in their teaching or training, through every stage of their career. Gaining QTLS or ATLS is a great achievement, and is a public demonstration of the professionalism of our teaching and training workforce.

“It is wonderful that Baroness Sharp, with her distinguished and longstanding involvement in further education as a spokesperson in the Lords and a governor of a further education college, has given out the awards and celebrated teachers’ and trainers’ achievements with IfL. It is a proud day for the profession and the further education sector.”