The Staff Individualised Record (SIR) published by the Educational and Training Foundation (ETF) is a really useful record of what is going on across the sector. There is something hiding in this year’s report that sector teachers should be really shouting about. It tells us that our wages have decreased “slightly” since the first SIR back in 2012.

I was marginally more horrified when I tried to work out the difference in salary if this average reported by the ETF had kept up with the average level of inflation of 2.5 per cent recommended by the Bank of England.  

News: £3bn National Skills Fund must be released, urge City and Guilds

More: Why do we not value the voice of FE teachers?

Background: FE workforce data shows college teacher pay down

According to the SIR, the average salary in the academic year 2012-13 was £32,500. In this year’s SIR, that salary is £32,300 - a small drop of £200, on the face of it. However, working on the Bank of England’s own figures, if the salary average had followed inflation, this year’s would be £37,699.46 - some five grand more. 

I won’t bore you with my own politics about why I think the drop has happened, but I do want to make the case for why I think we are all a little bit, if unknowingly, complicit in this. For this, I am going to reference a smashing paper by Dr David James. In this paper, he makes two arguments that really stand out for me in terms of our salary depression. The first is that professional knowledge used by teachers, trainers, lecturers and tutors across the sector has been under-conceptualised. The second is that the knowledge we do have is viewed to be unsustainable and unaffordable.

Concerns about pay in FE colleges

Take a moment to look at the narrative around the sector, the messages we receive on a regular basis. Achievement problems are the teachers’ issues and not the learners’; we need to make greater use of technology as our learners are ‘“digital natives” and this is the way they want to learn (although attendance figures at secondary schools over lockdown would not seem to support this); we are generalists, not subject specialists; we are not fonts of knowledge; we are facilitators.  

Generally, these messages seem to oversimplify the knowledge that we teach and the knowledge we have of how to teach it. 

Are we complicit in our acceptance of these narratives? I wince when I think of how many times teachers across the sector have told me they are “not the expert”. If the teacher of welding or of hairdressing isn’t the expert in teaching that subject, or trying to move towards it, who is? Is it the consultant who hasn’t worked in the sector for 20 years and has never taught your subject but is happy to “work with you” to learn what you know in order to sell it back to your organisation at a later date? Or the figurehead from an educational charity who has never taught at all?  No.

I want to begin to challenge the narrative. We are the experts and we need to be seen as such. We do not have to accept that any one person or thing is responsible for achievement issues - we could instead point to the complexity of the issues that drive this.

We need to carefully consider the use of technology and how it can complement and enhance our pedagogy by focusing on those people inside our sector who can guide us on this. Technology in FE has to look different to technology in schools or universities, because a lot of the knowledge taught in our sector is very different and used for very different purposes.

We should reject the idea that just anyone can teach any subject under any circumstances, that all you need to do is point the learner in the right direction, “add water” and, hey presto, they’re ready for the workplace or university. We have to firmly reject the notion that because this learning experience is not taking place elsewhere in the education system, it must be inherently “easy” to deliver. 

Above all, we need to help others to understand the complexity of our subjects and how to teach them. We need to take the mantle of the expert and own it.  Every time we are shy or coy, every time we talk about feeling like an imposter, we facilitate the erosion of our roles and our salaries.

Sam Jones is a lecturer at Bedford College, founder of FE Research Meet and was FE Teacher of the Year at the Tes FE Awards 2019