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As publicly funded multipurpose post-school institutions serving local and regional populations, further education colleges in England have important, if under-recognised, educational, social and economic roles. Colleges sit between secondary schools, universities and training providers. They provide academic, vocational, general and higher education as well as workforce training. Qualifications span the basic, intermediate and higher levels. Students are diverse in age and background. They include a disproportionate share of disadvantaged and second chance students. Further education colleges do not enjoy the status generally accorded to schools and universities. In part, this is a legacy of their history as technical colleges predominantly concerned with vocational education for industrial workers and employers. A shift to more diverse missions, together with their independence from local government, brought colleges into competition with better known institutions and more prestigious establishments, but also with other colleges. Issues of organisational identity, funding and status are acute, as highlighted by a wave of mergers and closures. Monitoring of colleges is against a narrow range of performance measures. Studies of the character and wider benefits of college learning are few.

PowerPoint presentation of Professor Gareth Parry's seminar.