IfL confirms commitment to membership

Tuesday 28 June 2011

The Institute for Learning (IfL) has confirmed its commitment to making a difference for teachers and trainers, and their practice, by delivering the best possible services for its growing membership. Already over 54,400 teachers and trainers from the diverse further education and skills sector have renewed their membership of IfL, four weeks before the 22 July 2011 lapse date, and hundreds more are renewing every day.

Toni Fazaeli, chief executive of IfL, said, “The University and College Union (UCU), with employers and other unions, worked hard alongside IfL to reach a joint agreement on principles, including the importance of professional membership, to which all parties signed up on 7 June. IfL is naturally disappointed that  7,877 of UCU’s 34,505 FE members chose to reject the agreement in a ballot, and acknowledges the strength of their message, as well as the support from 3,297 who accepted the agreement in the UCU ballot. 

“Nearly a third of IfL members have renewed, and that proportion is growing. IfL sees it as central that we continue to focus on listening to our members and delivering and further developing our services. When members renew, we ask about their ideas for their professional body, and we are listening hard to feedback and suggestions and will respond.

“In these difficult times, we hear members raising three big professional concerns:

  • Likely deteriorations in pensions, pay and terms and conditions pose a threat to retaining experienced and talented teachers and trainers and attracting new ones, exacerbating losses through redundancies in the sector
  • If time to prepare, assess and mark, as well as face-to-face teaching and staying up to date through continuing professional development (CPD), is eroded, quality for learners also will be eroded
  • There is a strong desire for more and high-quality CPD.

“Everyone agrees that learners deserve excellence. In partnership with the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), IfL is developing more CPD for members. IfL is working to influence the government and employers to support conditions that enable professional excellence to thrive and support all learners to succeed.

“IfL works in partnership with  the main unions, employers and other partners and hopes that, despite the UCU ballot result, the two organisations can continue to work together in the future for the benefit of teachers and trainers in the sector, and their learners.”