UTCs | FE Week

Crisis deepens as learners drop at two thirds of UTCs

Learner numbers have dropped at around two thirds of established university technical colleges this academic year, an FE Week investigation has found. We submitted freedom of information requests to the 26 UTCs that opened in 2014 or before, asking for their 2016/17 student numbers. FE Week analysis of their responses (see the full breakdown in […]

Fifteenth studio school set to close out of 36 nationwide

Another studio school is reported to be shutting its doors, making it the 15th of its kind to close and leaving just 35 open. Future Tech Studio School in Warrington, sponsored by Warrington Collegiate, will close at the end of the academic year, according to reports in the Warrington Guardian. The decision to close is […]

Don’t judge UTCs by school standards

UTCs perform a valuable function – don’t write off the whole enterprise based on misleading statistical comparisons with schools, says Nick Crew. The success of University Technical Colleges has been called into question lately, with several closing down, and even Michael Gove, who introduced them, weighing in to label them a failure. Yet UTCs perform […]

Parent anger over Daventry UTC closure

An angry parent of a student “devastated” by the news that her university technical college would close in the summer has demanded to know why the school took on new learners even though it knew it was in trouble. Daventry UTC, which opened in 2013, announced in early December that it would close its doors […]

DfE writes off another £3m from undersubscribed UTCs

Over £3 million of taxpayers’ money has been lost by the Department for Education, through unrecovered payments to failed university technical colleges for students who never enrolled. The DfE was unable to recover a total of £3,384,512 in pupil number adjustment clawbacks from the unsuccessful Royal Greenwich, Central Bedfordshire and Hackney UTCs, according to the […]

Failed UTC site used as cheap accommodation

Young professionals are living in a disused Walsall university technical college site, after the 14-19 institution was forced to closed in April last year. Black Country UTC was one of the first of its kind when it opened in 2011, but low student numbers, financial challenges, and poor Ofsted results were said to be behind […]

UTC Cambridge hit by Ofsted grade four rating

A University Technical College based in Cambridge has been hit with an ‘inadequate’ grade by the education watchdog Ofsted. UTC Cambridge opened in September 2014, specialising in biomedical science, environmental science, and technology, and is backed by Cambridge University Health Partners and Cambridge Regional College. Andrew Hutchinson, interim executive principal at UTC Cambridge, said a […]

Ron Dearing UTC expands a year before opening

A University Technical College (UTC) scheduled to open in Hull next year has expanded to accommodate an extra 50 student places in its first intake, in response to huge demand. The Ron Dearing UTC will focus on engineering and digital skills and is backed by the University of Hull and a number of employers, including […]