Volunteer teaching - crucial work experience or exploitation?

Description

Volunteer teachers seeking experience in the workplace run the risk of being exploited by employers.

That’s the result of research by academics at the University of Huddersfield, who analysed the advantages and disadvantages of the rise in voluntary, unpaid classroom work in further education colleges.

 

The study, by Dr Ron Thompson and Dr Lisa Russell, has been published in the Journal of Vocational Education and Training. It points to factors such as economic austerity, deregulation in the FE sector and wider acceptance of the principle of unpaid internships as a career step.