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Executive Summary
Scotland's colleges contribute to economic prosperity and help tackle poverty and disadvantage. They therefore have a key role to play in delivering the Executive's Framework for Economic Development in Scotland, A Smart, Successful Scotland, Life Through Learning; Learning Through Life, and its Closing the Opportunity Gap targets.
Colleges receive significant public funds - about £400m from the Scottish Funding Council ( SFC) in academic year 2004-05 for their general operation plus over £50m from the Council to allow colleges to provide bursaries to students. About 70% of college income is from the SFC, 17% is from tuition fees and education contracts, and 13% from other sources.
On the basis of extremely cautious assumptions, which do not capture all college learning and do not capture any of the other social benefits that such learning would bring, the net economic benefit of colleges through improved qualification levels is at least £1.3bn. In effect the college sector turns £1 into an asset worth (at least) £3.20 in a year. Colleges transform people's lives and give opportunity in many other ways as set out in the case studies in this report. This represents an excellent return on investment.
In 2004-05 there were over 350,000 students in Scotland's colleges. This amounted to over 450,000 enrolments in courses. The number of vocational enrolments has increased significantly between 1994-95 and 2004-05 - from 234,000 to 394,000; an increase of about 70%.
Colleges support learners in acquiring vocational and life skills. Their curriculum spans much of the range of learning needs, from specialised vocational education and training (such as construction, hairdressing, engineering, information technology, hospitality, and health and social care) through to general educational programmes. Colleges are also involved in wider activities to help develop the knowledge base of business to enhance their capacity to grow.
Colleges are pivotal to the delivery of lifelong learning in Scotland. They cater for the needs of students both in and out of employment at all stages in their lives from middle secondary school to retirement. No other sector can match the range of courses that colleges deliver.
Basic employability and technical skills are central to the benefits learners derive from college, and colleges work closely with the industries concerned, including with Sector Skills Councils, to ensure that the learning they provide is relevant.
There are important links between the acquisition of skills and wider social outcomes, such as improving health, reducing crime and enhancing social cohesion. For example, colleges' role in the community, working in partnership with other agencies including local authority Community Learning and Development services, and voluntary and community organisations, helps to promote social inclusion and encourages community activities.
Learner support is an integral part of the delivery of college courses. The range of students with very different levels of previous educational achievement demands that the college focus is on the learner. They provide a full package of learning that seeks to first identify and then meet learners' needs.
Colleges serve, at almost every qualification level, the needs of a diverse range of students across a whole range of ages. They give meaning to lifelong learning.
One of the key roles of colleges is to provide a bridge for school leavers to either further learning, training or employment.
Almost 13% of college students have a disclosed or identified disability.
About 38% of all Scottish domiciled higher education undergraduate students enter study at a college. It is increasingly common for some students to transfer upon the completion of their courses to accelerate their learning in a higher education institution by going straight into second or third year.
Students from the most deprived areas in Scotland where 20% of the population reside are disproportionately more likely to attend college.
Students from minority ethnic backgrounds attend college in proportions far above their level in the population as whole.
38% of college enrolments were related directly to employment (by employers either paying for the course in whole or part, block or day release or assessment of work-based learning). Taking into account activity such as government training programmes, about 58% of working-age enrolments can be attributed directly to industry links.
Between 2000 and 2004 HM Inspectorate of Education reviewed all colleges and 88% of cross-college grades were 'good' or 'very good'. In the 306 individual subject reviews that were also carried out, the comparable figure was 86%.
92% of college students were satisfied with the overall quality of their learning experience and 91% were satisfied with the college as a whole.
81% of workplaces thought that college leavers were well prepared for work in terms of softer, core skills such as communication, team working or problem solving. 80% thought they were well prepared in terms of technical skills.
Over 70% of student enrolments resulted in either a pass or a completed course. A further 11% were enrolments where the student is continuing to the next year of study.
All of Scotland's colleges are different. They range from the very small - Newbattle Abbey College, which is an adult residential college, has 124 students - to the large - Aberdeen College has for example 25,829 students.
Each offers a curriculum designed to serve its community.
For some that community is very locally defined, such as in Shetland and Orkney. For others, including Glasgow Metropolitan College that 'community' extends regionally and nationally.
Across the sector colleges face differing circumstances in which they deliver their provision. Colleges recognise, though, that there is merit in comparing practice across the sector and adopting or adapting the good practice that exists. This approach of self improvement helps the sector to be efficient and effective.
Colleges work alongside and in partnership with other education and training bodies. Each sector makes a difference. None of the differences below are unique to the college sector, but taken as a whole they describe the unique contribution that colleges make.
The difference colleges make can be attributed to:
- the differences between each college;
- the diversity of the students they serve and the range of learning opportunities that they provide;
- working together with a range of partners across the education and training sector, including employers and the Sector Skills Councils;
- the adult ethos;
- the vocational nature of many college programmes;
- the relevance of the curriculum;
- responding to the needs of the economy;
- the experience and quality of college lecturing staff and the different approaches to teaching that they employ;
- the learning support that colleges deliver;
- the flexibility of colleges and their focus on the learner;
- being at the heart of their community; and
- the quality of the college estate and equipment.
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