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Further Education Colleges “make a highly significant contribution to higher level provision”, according to new research published by the Learning and Skills Council.

The research was an analysis of existing research and MI data plus a small number of qualitatively oriented interviews with stakeholders in further education colleges and in professional bodies in order to gain insight into the issues currently facing the sector. These included five college principals or HE coordinators as well as senior representatives of professional bodies with high-enrolling learning aims.

The key finding of the research was that further education colleges make a highly significant contribution to higher-level provision, especially for learners who might otherwise find HE difficult to access because of lack of prior academic attainment, inadequate funding, geographical location, or lack of confidence. Among the conclusions were the following:

There are some issues with non-prescribed HE, these encompass different funding rates for the same provision across LSC and HEFCE, and constraints in terms of non prescribed HE not previously being identified as a priority for funding across the LSC. A number of colleges, especially those wedded to a public-subsidy model, are cancelling provision as soon as funding is withdrawn and not looking strongly enough at co-funding or fee income to sustain the provision. Some principals of colleges are of the view that this needs urgent attention to prevent the loss of an important source of social mobility and economic benefit – non-prescribed HE offers alternative routes to progression into the professions.
These problems are, however, only one particularly conspicuous aspect of the incoherence that has resulted from HEFCE’s and the LSC’s divided funding and administrative arrangements for higher-level provision in the FE sector. In the past there has been a tendency of ‘HE in FE’ to fall between the cracks in successive funding and policy documents and this needs to be addressed as soon as possible. If this can be done in an effective way, there is good reason to believe that the FE sector will play an invaluable and irreplaceable role in the provision of higher-level education and training.
The LSC and HEFCE have a clear awareness of the basic issues and have developed a joint agenda for higher-level vocational learning and skills. This provides an excellent opportunity to explore and resolve some of the major issues facing this part of the FE sector, particularly in terms of ensuring that, within shared funding responsibilities, both councils can ensure that non prescribed HE in particular is nurtured and grown.

Further details here