A role for HRM in the Further Education sector: using critical performativity to meet the needs of both the market and the professional development needs of the teacher

A review of the literature on the English Further Education (FE) sector suggests a shift from the current performativity culture towards teacher professionalism and reflexivity within communities of practice would more effectively improve teaching and learning. Drawing on the critical performativity perspective, this article considers how a progressive Observation of Teaching and Learning (OTL) in FE Colleges might be facilitated by HR practitioners through a reconciliation of teacher professionalism with the managerial positivism of the Ofsted Inspection Framework. Adopting critical performativity in the development of OTL would require HR practitioners to apply dialectical reasoning, involving discussion and debate of competing ideologies as a catalyst for a new and creative development of teaching and learning. In uncovering the voices of both leaders and teachers and shifting the dynamic from one of power and resistance to one of participation, communicative action and dialogue, pragmatic solutions may be found to meet both the performativity and staff development agendas in the sector. Such use of critical performativity by HRM is justified by the values and behaviours advocated by the professional body for HR practice – the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) – of good HRM being good for both employer and employee.