FE colleges innovate to accumulate courses

Low participation meets blue-chip research: Phil Baty reports on the East in the latest of our regional focuses

SPECIFIC challenges face further education colleges in the East, prompting a cautious approach to expansion combined with some innovative ways of delivering courses, writes Alan Thomson.

On top of the countrywide funding problems, eastern region institutions face the additional challenge of providing education in a sparsely populated, largely rural environment.

The Further Education Funding Council's strategic analysis of the region reveals that more than half of the 39 FE colleges fear their strategic plans could be hit by local authority transport policies.

In 1995-96 there were 60,180 full-time and 208,520 part-time students in the Further Education Funding Council's eastern region. Numbers are expected to grow by 6,600 and 31,310 respectively by 1998-99.

Colleges have been slow to take up franchising. Some 24,800 students were on courses franchised by colleges to external institutions in 1995-96, accounting for about ten per cent of FE students. The national average is 16 per cent. There also appears to be a certain insularity, since only 13 per cent of the provision was outside the region (33 per cent nationally).

But colleges continue to be cautious in their expansion despite the region being the fastest growing in England, with population up by a half in the past 30 years. Over the next three years full-time provision is expected to rise by 11 per cent compared with a projected UK average of 15 per cent. Part-time provision is set to grow by 18 per cent, again falling short of the national average of 26 per cent.

The approach by Cambridge Regional College is a good example of innovation in the East. It has expanded moderately and now caters for about 12,000 students. It is based mainly in Cambridge but it also serves rural Cambridgeshire.

Faced with a geographically disparate student market it began a programme of franchising provision to local schools. This enables the college to oversee standards locally. The franchising works both ways and the college is, in turn, contracted by Anglia Polytechnic University to deliver HND courses.