Comment on SFC College Performance Indicators Report
Commenting on the Scottish Funding Council's College Performance Indicators Report, Shona Struthers, Chief Executive of Colleges Scotland, said:
“Scotland’s colleges provided almost 118,000 full-time equivalent places in 2020/21, exceeding a target of 116,269 despite extremely challenging circumstances because of the pandemic.
“This report shows the dedicated work colleges undertook to help students complete their course during 2019/20 and 2020/21. The 7% of students who had to defer their learning into the next academic year because of campus closures and disruption to learning could have been a substantially higher number if not for the huge amount of advocacy, mitigations and support negotiated with agencies and the Scottish Government.
“Colleges Scotland absolutely agrees that full consideration should be given to these exceptional circumstances when comparing results over time.
“We will look closely at the data gathered over the academic year 2020/21 to understand more about the impact of the pandemic on college students, who often come to college from more deprived backgrounds and with more barriers to learning than students who attend university.”
“Scotland’s colleges provided almost 118,000 full-time equivalent places in 2020/21, exceeding a target of 116,269 despite extremely challenging circumstances because of the pandemic.
“This report shows the dedicated work colleges undertook to help students complete their course during 2019/20 and 2020/21. The 7% of students who had to defer their learning into the next academic year because of campus closures and disruption to learning could have been a substantially higher number if not for the huge amount of advocacy, mitigations and support negotiated with agencies and the Scottish Government.
“Colleges Scotland absolutely agrees that full consideration should be given to these exceptional circumstances when comparing results over time.
“We will look closely at the data gathered over the academic year 2020/21 to understand more about the impact of the pandemic on college students, who often come to college from more deprived backgrounds and with more barriers to learning than students who attend university.”