In FE, it’s all about vocation, vocation, vocation.

Actually that’s not all it’s about, but I thought that it was a pretty clever opening line. Having said that, more than any other sector, FE has a sharp focus on helping students to achieve success in the world of work. When we teach, we do so with an eye to the futures of those in our charge.

You might think, given that I’m a teacher of an “academic” subject, have a background in secondary education and sport an eccentric beard, that I may balk at the heavy emphasis on specific training (yep, I said “training”, which seems to be a dirty word for some education professionals).

Surely I see the focus on becoming qualified for a particular role as a restriction of what teaching and learning should be? Surely the heavily utilitarian nature of an FE institution’s goals in regard to the progress of its students should have me in such an existential crisis that the resultant beard-stroking causes small fires?

I’ve always held the belief that there is nobility in work. It’s a tad old-fashioned, but so’s my beard

Well, no, actually. For someone who is, at best, a deeply cynical person, I’ve always held the belief that there is an inherent nobility in work. It’s a tad old-fashioned but, then again, so’s my beard. Our students come to us and, in partnership, we try to ready them for whatever job they want to go on to do. Sometimes this process is a difficult one. Sometimes, it means they start from behind. But just because the aim is something as supposedly mundane as finding work, that doesn’t make it any less worthy.

I teach would-be plumbers how to spot the important points in a text. I teach soon-to-be beauticians where to put their apostrophes. I teach future games designers 19th-century literature. I teach things that are directly relevant to their vocational course and, because I’m a professional, sometimes I teach things that aren’t (you see, we do that in FE as well, even if it’s “only training”).

But more important than any of that, I teach the noble. I teach people who are worthy of respect as they travel a path where they attempt to better their own situation. People who strive to turn desires into reality. People who try. Yet their nobility goes unrecognised owing to the lack of status around learning something in a direct fashion “just for a job” (as if that were something to be ashamed of).

Such respect has rarely been given to the students and to the sector that deals in the sacred business of second, third and fourth chances. A sector that has had so much taken from it, yet continues to give so much.

“Vocational education”, “training”, “finding a job”. High aspirations. Noble aspirations. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that they’re not.

Tom Starkey teaches English at a college in the North of England @tstarkey1212