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Annex D
Recommendations on staffing, learners and learning environments
Staffing
Continuing Professional Development ( CPD) for All Staff
1. We strongly endorse the positive role which CPD can play in achieving broader objectives of quality improvement in colleges, through its impact on efficiency and effectiveness of college processes, on capacity building and promoting flexibility, and on the quality of students' learning experience.
2. We recommend the following as shared goals for the sector:
a) all staff in Scotland's colleges engage in systematic reflection of how they contribute to the
work of colleges in supporting learners;
b) all colleges provide appropriate opportunities for all members of staff to upgrade or improve
their professional skills; and
c) all colleges provide opportunities for members of staff to gain appropriate qualifications
relevant for their professional role.
3. We recommend that all full-time staff in colleges should fulfil, as a minimum expectation, six days of CPD a year, and that colleges should determine and implement appropriate proportionate expectations for part-time, fixed-term and temporary staff. The recommendation should be applied equitably, and in a way which does not disadvantage staff who are not on full-time permanent contracts.
4. We recommend that the Scottish Executive should commission an independent review into the future oversight of staff development activity for all college staff, with a view to taking forward its findings by Spring 2008. The review should consider:
- How this oversight might best be delivered;
- What, if any, alternative arrangements might need to be put in place; and
- Appropriate linkages to other professional and membership bodies.
[The STUC view is that the existing PDF is the right vehicle to carry out this function. The ASC and SFEU believe that we should not prejudge the findings of the review.]
5. We recommend that the Scottish Executive ensures that the Scottish Funding Council, in distributing any additional funding for staff training, does so on an equitable basis, which ensures that colleges who have previously invested in staff development are entitled to funding for other staff development opportunities.
6. We recommend that the Scottish Funding Council also considers whether (and, if so, how) individualised staffing returns can be used to monitor and evaluate Initial Teacher Training and all staff CPD activity across the sector.
7. We recommend that all agencies with responsibilities for quality should give due consideration to encouraging good practice in the effective deployment of CPD.
8. We recommend that statements arising from SLALE's consideration of CPD should be framed in terms of all staff, and should not emphasise distinctions between groups of staff with different professional responsibilities.
9. We recommend that colleges examine the benefits of using external monitoring processes, such as Investors in People (IiP) or the European Foundation for Quality Management ( EFQM) Excellence Model, as a means of reviewing the effectiveness of their policies on staff development and CPD.
10. We recommend that the Scottish Executive, working in partnership with key stakeholders, monitors the roll out of Union Learning Representatives in colleges and considers commissioning a systematic study of their impact once the scheme has become fully embedded.
11. We recommend that colleges develop and deploy CPD recording and monitoring procedures for all staff. This is likely to entail the use of logs, linked to the SFC's proposed individualised staffing return, and designed to measure both formal and informal CPD activity. Colleges should also, as part of this work, record and evaluate the impact of CPD on enhancing the quality of the learning experience, and record and monitor CPD costs. We also recommend that relevant communities of practice consider ways of measuring and benchmarking the contribution of informal CPD to the achievement of college CPD policies.
12. We recommend that colleges consider ways of developing vocational and professional updating activity for teaching staff, taking into account the Scottish Funding Council pilot and the Northern Ireland experience.
13. We believe that further investment in CPD is justified and recommend that this should be applied through an overall increase in the unit of resource for colleges rather than through earmarked funding for staff development.
Teacher Training for New Lecturers
14. We recommend that implementation of the recommendations on teacher training for new lecturers be phased over three years, with an estimated average annual cost of approx. £5.2m (i.e. total estimated costs of £15.459m over three years).
15. While the amount of remission available to staff is a decision for individual colleges, it is worth noting that the estimated annual cost of phasing in the recommendations for the Teaching Qualification (Further Eductation) TQ( FE) is based on a calculation which includes the equivalent of 240 hours of remission for the duration of the course.
16. While the recommendations apply only to new lecturers, we would also encourage colleges to continue to support existing staff to gain relevant Professional Development Awards ( PDAs) and/or TQ( FE).
A Code of Practice
17. We recommend that colleges (where appropriate) develop, and keep under review, some form of code of practice [Note: we believe it would be neither desirable nor feasible to impose an explicit code of practice (or equivalent) on the sector]. Some examples of what a code may encompass, and what it may be used for, are outlined in Annex E of the report, Inspiring Achievement.
18. We recommend that where colleges do decide to introduce or review a code of practice (or equivalent), they should do so in consultation with staff, trade unions, management and boards of management. They should also explicitly consider the importance of meeting the educational and welfare needs of learners.
The Delegation of Functions Undertaken By The Scottish Executive's Transport and Lifelong Learning Directorate ( LLD)
19. We recommend that LLD should continue, for the time being, to support the work of the Professional Development Forum and to approve TQ( FE) programmes. We note that it may be appropriate to reconsider the delegation of these functions in the light of future developments.
The Current and Future Profile of Staff in Scotland's Colleges
20. We recommend that colleges evaluate, in the light of this report, the quality of their strategic human resource management processes and take any necessary action to ensure current and future challenges are known and addressed.
21. We recommend that the Scottish Funding Council should consider how its current review of staffing data collection processes can best take full account of equalities issues (we note that there may be a role for Equality Forward in this regard), add value to workforce planning activity, and reflect relevant aspects of this report.
22. We recommend that college and staff representative bodies work jointly in undertaking regular, preferably annual, surveys on qualitative measures of satisfaction of staff working in colleges.
The Further Modernisation and Improvement of Learning and Teaching Methods in Scotland's Colleges
23. We recommend that the SFC commissions a report examining, with reference to relevant sections of the RoSCo Strategic Futures report, the major future (short and medium term) issues affecting learning and teaching within the sector. A central outcome of this report should be a list of key recommendations for colleges, their staff and all relevant agencies.
Learners
Improving the Overall College Experience for Learners
24. For Scotland's colleges to continue to improve the quality of service they deliver to learners they should:
- increase student, staff and board of management awareness of the benefits of effective student representation;
- be aware of the factors which prevent learners from participating fully in college life, and seek to support learners to address them where they can;
- attempt to foster a philosophy of inclusive learner development;
- increase the assistance available to students to enable them to properly represent their fellow learners;
- attempt to broaden awareness of the effective use of proper channels of communication throughout the college; and
- attempt to broaden awareness of the effective use of feedback from learners.
25. We recommend that colleges and students' associations make use of the information, case studies and toolkits within this report and its annexes (particularly F and G of the report, Inspiring Achievement), as well as relevant sections of the RoSCo Accountability and Governance report, to ensure that learners are properly represented and continue to have a positive learning experience.
The Current and Future Profile of Learners in Scotland's Colleges
26. We recommend that the Scottish Funding Council should work together with Scotland's colleges and other stakeholders including Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise to consider how learner data can be collected and used more efficiently to help with strategic planning at a national and local level.
27. We recommend that the proposed review of data collection on learners should take full account of equalities issues. We note that there may be a role for Equality Forward in this regard.
28. We recommend that colleges, the SQA and policy makers should continue to investigate ways in which the gender imbalance within college courses can be resolved. We anticipate that this will involve the Executive's cross-departmental working group working with colleges to review current good practice activity aimed at addressing gender stereotyping.
29. We recommend that colleges and policy makers take note of the information contained in this report [ Inspiring Achievement] on the current and projected future profile of college students with a view to ensuring that Scotland's colleges continue to effectively serve the needs of all sections of society.
Learning Environments
30. We recommend that sufficient capital funding is allocated to realise the benefits that can be derived from improved estates, and acknowledge that continuing investment is needed to clear the maintenance and improvement backlog and sustain new estates and refurbished campuses. In order to achieve this, annual investment averaging around £150m would be required for a number of years.
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