ABSTRACT
In 1995 there were 465 colleges of further education with a total of 2,607,000 part-time and full-time students (OPCS 1997, p. 64). Funding through the Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs, see Glossary) had by now become particularly important for further education, as had the national vocational qualifications framework. Colleges began concentrating on full-time students as they responded to the government’s desire to increase full-time further education participation rates. This trend was reinforced by a continuing recession and the lack of apprenticeships in industry. As a result the proportion of students on day-release fell considerably (Hall 1994). Table 2.2 gives information about the types of enrolments in further education. More recent data are not strictly comparable with those in the table because of changes in definitions; however, there has been a steady increase in enrolments to further education, with a total of 2.5 million in 1997/8 (OPCS 2001, p. 65)
Adults can enrol on a wide variety of day and evening courses: academic, vocational and leisure-oriented. Around 1.1 million adults in England and Wales were enrolled on courses in adult education centres in 1994/5 (OPCS 1997, p. 66). Additionally there are hundreds of other agencies involved in adult education, e.g. correspondence colleges, women’s institutes, the Workers’ Education Association and the National Extension College. Universities are now autonomous bodies responsible for managing their own curricula, assessments and finances. Adults can improve their literacy and numeracy skills by enrolling on a basic skills course. The numbers doing so increased steadily over the ten years to 1994/5, with a total of 208,000 receiving tuition in this area in England and Wales in that year (OPCS 1997, p. 67).
