Room for improvement? The impact of compulsory professional development for teachers in England's further education sector

After years of neglect, the New Labour government has identified the further education (FE) sector in England as being the crucial means to achieve two policies at the centre of their project: social justice through widening participation in education and enhancing the skills of the nation's workforce to compete in a globalised economy. This has led to FE and the staff who work there being more and more closely scrutinised and directed by the government, and from September 2007 teachers in FE colleges in England are required to participate annually in at least 30 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) in order to maintain their qualified status. This and many of the other government initiatives are associated with restrictive and impoverished notions of professionalism, but the sanctioning of CPD chosen and recorded by the staff themselves, rather than their employers, may allow room for a more meaningful and autonomous professionalism to evolve.