A casual victim

I've been teaching Law in FE colleges and sixth forms forms for the past decade. Not any more. Despite good exam results (now the gold standard by which all teachers are ultimately judged), good student (sorry, learner) approval ratings - backed up by performance management appraisals and lesson observations, I found myself without a class to teach just 2 days into the new academic year. It was against this backdrop of newly enforced idleness - I was a 'freelance teacher': no contract, no guaranteed hours, but expectation of managing my own 'continuous professional development' and qualifications - that I read Jo Johnson's comments about 'lamentable teaching' standards in Higher Education. This Johnson is supposed to be capable of joined-up thinking that at least meets the standards of modern society, as opposed to bro BoJo who wants us to live in a classicists dreamworld, but the end result is the same - a fundamental disconnect and wilful refusal to accept the truth. Which is simply this: good teaching can only come from a well-trained, well-equipped and properly resourced professional teaching body. It can't be conjoured from thin air when teachers are forced to rely on temporary, or even no, contracts, and where there is no continuity of employment. When you are continually looking over your shoulder, wondering if the agency has found you enough work, at a high enough pay rate, then you cannot perform your duties to a high standard; and without the limited guarantee of of work from one week to the next you have no incentive to do more than the basic minimal level of work (Ofsted and PM obsessed line managers notwithstanding). And that, Mr Johnson, concludes your lesson in teaching reality for today, now write a 500 word essay on why casualisation is undermining the UK's vital FE and HE sectors.