Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland's Colleges

In November 2002, the then Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Learning Iain Gray announced a full-scale review of the occupational standards for college lecturers. The main aims of this review were to expand provision for continuing professional development and update the content of the standards in light of recent developments in the policy, legislative and learning and teaching contexts. The most important of these changes were:

	The recommendations in the report by the Advisory Committee on Post-school Education and Training for Young People, usually referred to as the Beattie Committee, on the training of teaching staff;
	The introduction of new diversity legislation such as the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2000 and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000;
	Developments in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) for learning and teaching purposes; and
	Changes in the role and responsibilities of college lecturers which meant that some now had roles as curriculum team leaders.

The review began with a large scale consultation exercise in 2003. Following the analysis of responses to this exercise (see 'Documents' page), a set of five working groups - comprising a mix of practitioners and experts from the FE sector and beyond - were set up to actually revise the occupational standards in terms of the areas of priority that the consultation exercise had identified. This work culminated in June 2006 with the publication of the new 'Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland's Colleges', which effectively replaced the National Guidelines as the key source of information on all matters pertaining to the professional training of college lecturers in Scotland.

To access a .pdf version of the document, please click on the image at the top of this page.