Post-16 Educator

By and for practitioners and activists . . .

Post-16 Educator is a quarterly magazine produced by and for activists in all sectors of post compulsory education.

To all UCU and other union branches with an interest in further, adult and higher education, the magazine is a 24-page quarterly produced entirely by and for practitioners and activists in these sectors.

If your branch would like to arrange a subscription, please contact the editor on cwaugh1@btinternet.com and let us know how many copies you would like, whether you would want a PDF of each issue etc, and we will get back to you with a suggested subscription rate. For individual or regular individual subs go to Subscriptions.

Defend Duncan Blackie!

Support striking NEU members at Longley Park, Sheffield

NEU members at Longley Park Sixth Form College in Sheffield are to take a second day of strike action in defence of their workplace rep Duncan Blackie. Duncan also acts as joint branch and district secretary in Sheffield and is an elected member of the NEU’s national executive, where he is a representative of the sixth form sector.

Post-16 Educator calls on our readers to mobilise support for Duncan and to join the picket line. Picket lines will form outside the college, part of Brigantia Trust, from 8am on Tuesday 21st January 2025.

Background statement here

Latest Post-16 Educator
Issue 118: January to March 2025

Articles in blue are available to download. The remainder will be posted in the next few weeks once subscribers' hard copies have circulated.

FHE history from below
Rob Peutrell introduces the archive of PSE and its predecessor, General Educator.

Goodbye IfATE . . . Hello Skills England
Martin Allen weighs up current government policy on education and ‘skills’.

Phil Cohen 1943-2024
Patrick Ainley pays tribute to the co-author of the important study Knuckle Sandwich.

NEU mounts first national strike against Labour government as staff in 32 Sixth Form Colleges take action
Dan Whittall explains the background to the dispute.

Barriers to progression
Declan Flanagan documents how GCSE English and maths block ‘newcomers’’ life chances in Northern Ireland and suggests possible alternatives.

ESOL, jazz and language teacher education
In an interview, John Sutter, of Learning Unlimited, talks to PSE about English for Speakers of Other Languages.

The state of adult education in England in 2024
Edited version of an article by Ian Duckett, written originally for Key Workers United, Norfolk and Waveney.

Fascism and Paulo Freire’s theory of consciousness
Stephen Cowden argues for the relevance of Freire’s thought to current developments on the far-right.

Proletkult (The Russian Proletarian Cultural-Educational Association)
John Biggart describes a key project organised in Russia after the 1917 revolution.

The conspiracy of capital
In part 1 of a 2-part article, David Ridley investigates conceptions of alienation.

PSE Features

100 Years On From The Ruskin Strike
‘Plebs’
The Lost Legacy of Independent Working-Class Education, a PSE occasional publication by Colin Waugh

The Real Radical Education?

Liberal and General Studies with vocational students in UK colleges 1950-1990 as revealed through interviews with practitioners who taught it.

Bulletin 1: origins; purpose; context October 2017
Bulletin 2: history; aims; legacy November 2018

A Post-16 Educator occasional publication

Introducing David Ridley's new book: No Consolation: Radical Politics in Terrifying Times
Contributions from David Ridley (independent researcher and journalist), Stephen Cowden (University of Gloucester), Dan Taylor (lecturer in Social and Political Thought at the Open University) and Patrick Ainley (formerly at Greenwich University).

Moving literacy

Post-16 Educator talked to Kayte Haselgrove and Kirsty Haughton about the new FE Literacy Movement. Link to the transcript here.

PSE on Zoom

POST-16 EDUCATOR ON ZOOM
Jane Lethbridge discussed:
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHANGING H.E. WORKFORCE?
Thursday 26 May 2022, 6.30 - 7.30

In December 2021, Alison Wolf and Andrew Jenkins published a report: The new staffing patterns of UK higher education. To start this PSE discussion, Jane Lethbridge will analyse this report and look at how these changes are reflected in one post-1992 university (University of Greenwich) and the implications of these changes. The risks, threats and radical scope of these changes will fundamentally change higher and further education in future.

Slides available here

POST-16 EDUCATOR ON ZOOM
Colin Waugh in discussion:
MORE THAN TRAINING FOR A JOB?
Thursday April 28th 2022, 6.30 - 7.30

Are we just producing work-ready individuals for precarious jobs or is there space for social purpose in today’s vocational education?

The role of further education in preparing young people for work is an issue of continuing (often frustrated) debate among FE teachers. Are we simply churning out work-ready young people with the skills employers say they want in an increasingly precarious labour market?

Yet, many FE teachers remain committed to the idea that vocational education should be more than preparation for a job but should also include a social-purpose education for life. But what does this mean in practice? What spaces are left for a broader education on tightly-regulated, time-limited vocational courses?

In this session, Colin Waugh will revisit an earlier attempt to widen the vocational curriculum through the introduction of Liberal or General Studies on day-release apprenticeship courses. These ran from the late-50s until 1990 when they were replaced by numeracy and communications classes more geared to the assumed needs of employers.

Drawing on her recent doctoral research, Hannah Walters will then look at how FE teachers today enable a social-purpose dimension informally on vocational programmes in response to the life-needs, shared concerns, and wider interests of their students.

On our website - worth reading:

Hannah Walters (PSE 106): Future workers, 'levelling up' and a 'skills revolution'
Colin Waugh et al: The Real Radical Education: Liberal and General Studies with vocational students in UK colleges 1950-1990 (link under 'PSE Features')

POST-16 EDUCATOR ON ZOOM
Join Bill Esmond & Liz Atkins in discussion:
EDUCATION. SKILLS & SOCIAL JUSTICE IN A POLARISING WORLD
Thursday March 24th 2022 6.30 - 7.45
PDF Flyer

About PSE

There are several real debates going on in post-16 education at the moment. Practitioners need to engage in these debates before decisions get made. Post-16 Educator covers all the major issues in the post-compulsory sector.

Each quarterly issue includes news and commentary from those working within post compulsory education, plus regular contributions from other interested activists. Comprehensive news coverage picks up on reports in national and local media, together with academic and government papers relevant to the sector. Recent features have included the Israeli academics boycott, prisoner education, teaching practice, and the University and College Union (UCU).

The Editorial Board

The editorial board consists of grass roots activists from UCU and the NEU working together to organise readers and contributors into a national network that is democratic, that develops our practice and our thinking, and that equips us to take action over issues rather than always having to react to changes imposed from above.

Where we stand

Post-16 Educator seeks to defend and extend good practice in post-compulsory education and training. Good practice includes teachers working with students to increase their power to look critically at the world around them and act effectively within it. This entails challenging racism, sexism, heterosexism, inequality based on disability and other discriminatory beliefs and practices.

For the mass of people, access to valid post-compulsory education and training is more necessary now than ever. It should be theirs by right! All provision should be organised and taught by staff who are trained for and committed to it. Publicly funded provision of valid post-compulsory education and training for all who require it should be a fundamental demand of the trade union movement.

Post-16 Educator seeks to persuade the labour movement as a whole of the importance of this demand. In mobilising to do so it bases itself first and foremost upon practitioners – those who are in direct, daily contact with students. It seeks the support of every practitioner, in any area of post-16 education and training, and in particular that of women, of part-timers and of people outside London and the Southeast.

Post-16 Educator works to organise readers/contributors into a national network that is democratic, that is politically and financially independent of all other organisations, that develops their practice and their thinking, and that equips them to take action over issues rather than always having to react to changes imposed from above.

Articles for Publication

The editors welcome articles of any length by and/or for practitioners and intending practitioners in any area of post-16 education, especially by women, plus letters, news items, photographs, materials and illustrations. Articles can be published anonymously if required.

Subscribe to PSE

In addition to the free online content, you can subscribe and support PSE and receive 4 paper copies each year from only £3. Click here for further details.