The secret life of teacher educators: becoming a teacher educator in the learning and skills sector

The requirement that teachers in the learning and skills sector are appropriately qualified and the setting of national standards for teacher training qualifications have led to an increased focus on teacher education within the sector. However, this does not appear to have been reflected in commentary or published research about the teacher educators who deliver the training. This article reports on research into the characteristics of a consortium network of 130 teacher educators based in the North of England and considers issues arising from an examination of their routes into teacher education. The learning and skills workforce is predominantly female, white and ageing. The teacher educator workforce, to which attention is drawn here, is more female, more white and yet older. The article provides a brief review of some of the current pressures in further education (FE), from where the teacher educators are drawn, and suggests that, however understandable, a failure to employ formal and transparent recruitment and selection procedures, as identified during the course of the research, is unlikely to enhance diversity.