Further Education: managing radical change

The UK’s Further Education (FE) sector is facing significant cuts, ranging from 25 – 40% as a result of government directives and current economic conditions.  In addition, these organisations have fewer income opportunities, increasing pressure on their ability to manage radical change.

As in local government, more and more FE colleges are merging their organisations to achieve greater back office efficiencies.  Commentators predict that the number of FE colleges and sixth forms may drop by half or even two-thirds over the next five years.

Merging operations, changing operations

The flexibility and integration capabilities of the underlying IT in FE can have a substantial impact on the speed and levels of difficulty involved in merging operations and at the same time, those operations are also changing.  For example:

• Due to a capped number of University places, FE colleges have an opportunity to gain additional revenue from the provision of degree course tuition, ratified by an associated University.
• The 16 – 19 bursary fund has significantly reduced student funding, and funding administration was transferred to the Young People’s Learning Agency and Skills Funding Agency in 2010.
• Student experience management systems facilitating students’ self-administration from application and throughout their alumni process, can make significant reductions to colleges’ administration and operational costs.