City and Islington College, born in 1993, has faced challenges aplenty in its 20 years. Despite the blips, a birthday study shows how it has championed the community it serves, writes Andrew Morris

Take two FE colleges, one sixth-form centre and one adult education service, mix together slowly, simmer on a gentle heat and what do you get after 20 years? Something “outstanding in every single measure”, says Ofsted; “a model for others”, says a citation for one of the college’s Queen’s Anniversary prizes; “exemplars in the field”, say the words of the Learning Skills Improvement Service’s beacon award.

For most colleges in 1993, just taking over the multiplicity of corporate services from the local authority seemed challenge enough; the imposition of a new funding methodology at the same time looked decidedly risky. What crazy people would aggravate the situation by adding a cross-sector, four-way merger to the mix? Answer: Islington people.

To understand this paradox, City and Islington College decided last year to organise a study of its life. With the former principal, Tom Jupp, I interviewed staff of all types and vintages, pored over ancient statistics and spoke to students, past and present. The analysis, yet to be completed, throws light not only on the college’s path to 2013 but on many issues affecting the world of learning and skills. The story that emerges is one of immense change — no surprises there — but, unexpectedly, one that we found retold consistently by teachers, learning supporters, students, business support staff, premises personnel.

So what are the headlines?

“It’s more systematic, it’s tighter, we’re more accountable,” say the staff; “the quality of teaching and support is fantastic,” say the students; “they showed us how to grow up, love learning and move on to further things,” say the alumni — to paraphrase 48 interviews. Beneath the headlines lies a little more nuance. “There are also losses,” say the staff who mourn the freedoms they enjoyed before the age of indicators; “it gets harder and harder, competing for grades and jobs,” say the students.

One of the greatest changes is from paper-based to online systems (see table). Computerised management information has transformed the college’s knowledge of its strengths and weakness; online business processes have streamlined personnel, recruitment and financial control.

Then there are the changes that came with new business influences in governance. In came new expertise in real estate and finance; sites were consolidated and well equipped and attractive new buildings created, much better suited to modern learning in convenient locations.

An extremely positive image of what FE can do for a community emerges from this study”

Learning has been enriched by online access to materials and opportunities available in every classroom, library and learning support areas. The curriculum has grown — forensic sciences, veterinary nursing, media technology — and with it have come opportunities for new kinds of enterprise and partnership, providing students with real work experience.

But the path of growth and development has not been quite as smooth as these changes might suggest. Political swings and economic turbulence leave their trace over 20 years. Enrichment activity, once the preserve of more privileged schools and universities, stimulated aspirations for higher education and supported vulnerable people at critical moments. It opened up a world of possibilities — intellectual, enterprising, cultural and social — but as resources have reduced, the college has struggled to maintain what it can.

Even more severe have been the changes in funding for adult learners, with rising fee levels and diminished Esol funding systematically reducing their number. Swings in government attitudes to school sixth forms have also proved a challenge.

The 11 to 16 partner schools of the Sixth Form Centre (now College) long ago pooled their small sixth forms and paved the way for the enormous success of this part of the college, but today separate small sixth forms are back in vogue.

By contrast, some aspects of college life have developed. Careers guidance, counselling and supported learning services have improved, as have procedures for safeguarding vulnerable young people and adults, support for learning, and attention to pedagogy.

New vocational curriculum areas have been introduced to meet new demand in areas such as counselling, beauty therapy and sports science. Others, such as electrical engineering, have closed. Higher education provision and courses providing access to higher education have increased, particularly on the vocational side. ‘Social mobility’ has been supported for thousands of people going on to higher education: 1,315 in 2012, including 98 to Russell group universities.

City and Islington College’s new sixth form campus, in Goswell Road, London, and inset- the old campus in Benwell Road, London

So what of the overall picture?

The first 20 years at City and Islington have certainly seen challenges aplenty, as they have for colleges everywhere. Contract negotiations in the early 1990s, vacillating national policy on qualifications and funding, increasing group sizes, greater workloads, repeated restructuring and redundancies — all have left their mark.

Yet whatever the external stresses over the years, an extremely positive image of what FE can do for a community emerges from this study of a single college over two decades.

It shows students and staff united in valuing the quality of their relationship, and their respect for one another as the key to successful learning. The college’s unremitting emphasis on its students, their learning and support, is backed by all in the college community – from security guard to director of finance.

Perhaps the last word should go to a former student interviewed for the study. In describing the experience from a student’s point of view, Huseyin Acar told us: “Without the college, I would just have worked in a small shop as lots of people in my position do. This college gives a chance to people. It opened my way, so I could see the opportunities. The college allowed me to choose and gave me the tools to achieve my objectives. It gave me advice, guidance and personal support. It’s a long term relationship. We’ve run this journey together.”

Huseyin began as an Esol student at 16, progressed through A-levels to university and in two years expects to be an architect.  His long-term ambition is to become a governor of the college.

Andrew Morris, a former director at the City & Islington College

Public confusion about the identity of a “college”, poor media perception of FE and a lack of skills among college press officers combine to prevent the sector getting better media coverage, it is argued.

A brief study of journalists’ perceptions of the sector for FE Week points to a continued poor understanding among news editors — the “gatekeepers” of the national media.

But it also reveals a failure among college press officers to spot and promote good stories, suggesting a lack of practical journalistic skills and experience.

Education correspondents interviewed for the study said it was rare for a college press officer to really show a clear understanding of what makes a story.

One said: “Despite having media studies degrees, they don’t seem to understand the difference between marketing and communications.”

Janet Murray, (pictured) a regular writer for FE Week and the Guardian and founder of the Last Word media consultancy, said: “People constantly come to me with stories about buildings and not policy or people. There is a clear lack of training and expertise.

“There is a lack of space in the media and editors want the nitty-gritty about education maintenance allowances and apprenticeships.”

Liz Lightfoot, former Daily Telegraph education correspondent, said there was a perennial problem of attitude among news editors — “One comment from a news editor was that everyone has been to school and knows about university, but not everyone knows about further education.”

But she echoes Murray’s concern, saying “press officers need to rise to the challenge”.

There is no doubt that media coverage has improved since incorporation, with the rise of national online services and high-profile trade media.

TES FE Focus was launched in 1995 and quickly followed by Guardian Further. While the latter closed and FE Focus has moved to become online only, the not-even-two years old FE Week is now the only newspaper dedicated to the sector.

Problems of a poor public understanding of FE have been revealed in work by the Association of Colleges (AoC).

A survey for the AoC by ICM Research in 2011 showed the confusion in the public mind about the identity of a college.

Two thirds (72 per cent) of the public thought Trinity College Cambridge was an FE college and over half thought the same of Eton.

Just over half believed they were still run by local authorities and one-in-five said they weren’t inspected by Ofsted. Nearly a quarter assumed they took less pastoral care of students than schools.

But once it was explained what colleges did, their impression was very favourable and more than 80 per cent said they would be happy for their children to go to one and thought they made an important contribution to the local economy.

Around 90 per cent concluded they gave people a second chance at education.

One answer may be to make colleges “a recognisable ‘brand’.” Work for the AoC by the consultancy Branded concluded, however, that this would be highly problematic.

First, unlike the word ‘university’ which has a legal definition, the word ‘college’ has an established usage elsewhere in schools.

Second, FE colleges cover a diverse range of activities targeted at different audiences, making an all-encompassing brand potentially so broad as to be meaningless or even self-defeating.

One possibility suggested by Branded is for the sector to agree on a common set of values over and above individual products and services.

They could then adopt a kitemark or Charter mark, indicating membership of the AoC for example, in the way that travel agents might belong to ABTA.

It is the sort of proposal that makes the government’s proposed Chartered status for the further education sector, currently out for consultation, possibly even more attractive.

Former hairdressing apprentice Jodie Whitemore (pictured right) is running her own salon at the age of 20 while completing a foundation degree at West Nottinghamshire College.

Just four years ago, she started her NVQ with no school-leaver qualifications and looked destined to add to the growing bank of NEET statistics. But Asha Khemka, her college principal, had other ideas with the creation of the Ashfield Centre aimed at capturing the likes of Jodie.

Nineteen-year-old Joseph Johnson (also pictured) is a similar entrepreneurial success story. While studying professional cookery at the college, he helped create the Forest Ferret company, producing and selling jams and preserves.

When Khemka launched the Ashfield Centre, she discovered that public funding would never meet the centre’s needs and so founded the Inspire and Achieve Foundation — a charity separate from the college — to fund it.

Based in former South Yorkshire coal-mining communities with severe cycles of inter-generational deprivation, the college had to act, she says.

In September, Khemka launches Vision Entrepreneur — a programme designed to support the job-creators of tomorrow — where enterprising students from the college and local sixth-forms will learn what it takes to succeed in business while hearing from inspirational guest speakers.

Similar initiatives can be seen springing up elsewhere, and not just for NEETs.

Among them is the Gazelle Group of 20 colleges, launched in April 2011, which its chief executive, Fintan Donohue, describes as “subversive” in intent.

“The group promotes the idea of entrepreneurial colleges as a disruptive influence for positive change in the purpose of colleges and the nature of their offer,” he says.

Technological change is rapidly replacing colleges and classrooms as the route to knowledge and skill”

Colleges have been striving for a more enterprising approach ever since incorporation — reaching out to the community, creating arms-length college companies which reinvest profits in learning, and franchising courses to reach people in the workplace, but they too often came to grief for overstepping the mark or being accused of using public funds for private training. But, more recently, it has been seen as quite respectable for colleges have come to the rescue of collapsed or failed enterprises, such as the Newcastle College Group takeover of Carter & Carter and Khemka’s own college appropriation of training company Pearson in Practice.

Several factors are forcing a change of attitude and approach, says Donohue.

“Traditional colleges and qualifications no longer provide the career opportunities they once did,” he explains.

“Young people are more open to the sort of entrepreneurship already established in countries like India and Africa. Technological change is rapidly replacing colleges and classrooms as the route to knowledge and skill. And the recent European Commission report makes entrepreneurial education its number one priority.”

This constitutes a far more generalised rather than utilitarian view of students being enterprising and entrepreneurial, he says.

“We need people who are ‘enterprising’ in all the dimensions of their life, not just about their career paths and financial investments,” explains Donohue.

For Sally Dicketts, principal of Oxford & Cherwell Valley College (a Gazelle member) the way to bring the best of the past and present together is through the creation of a learning company, where students are employed in real commercial operations as a significant part of their college experience. From September, business students will work in administration and marketing, media students will make films for local businesses, motor vehicle students will provide MOTs to paying customers and art students will develop community art projects.

A tutor-led and assessed programme taking 30 hours a week will combining work experience and individual study.

“At the end of their programme they can choose to work permanently in the learning company or with our own employment agency to gain employment or progress into higher education,” she says.