Global Development

3. Niels Brock College

Niels Brock College is the second largest educational institution in Denmark and is located in the heart of Copenhagen, the country’s capital city. It has six departments with nearly 35,000 students, more than 1000 employees, and more than 200 various subject areas to choose from.

Niels Brock offers a variety of business programs (such as finance, marketing, computer science, international business, and business administration) for youth, as well as for adults, and private and public sector employees. Some of the college’s programs are classified as “short-cycle higher education” programs, meaning that they do not follow the dual system apprenticeship model but are not part of the universities. Students in these programs often are required to hold leaving certificates from HHX or HTX upper secondary programs.

Founded in 1888, Niels Brock's name commemorates Niels Brock, a wealthy merchant who was one of the founders of the Danish vocational business education movement. The founders intended to provide vocational education for young self-made businessmen. Today Niels Brock gives high priority to the “internationalization” of education. The school actively engages in student and teacher exchange, and it permanently hosts visiting teachers from abroad. For example, it has an ongoing exchange program with Howard Community College in Maryland. An increasing number of courses are offered in English. Faculty at the college comprises permanent staff as well as external part-time teachers from the business world in Denmark and abroad.

Further Education in England

“The Engine Room of Social Mobility”

Geoff Hall


The Policy Framework

Further Education in England in the second half of the first decade of the 21st century finds itself ‘centre stage’ as the Government addresses the skills needs of the economy. The ‘New Labour’ Government’s mission has always been founded on the twin pillars of economic success and social justice. However, after 8 years in office, two ‘audits’ of progress raised concern about what had been achieved and what still needed to be done. A seminal study by the New Labour-inclined think tank, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR)⁵⁶, considered New Labour progress against Professor David Miller’s⁵⁷ four measures of social justice.

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  Equal citizenship: First, basic legal and political rights, but also the effective means to exercise those rights;
  
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  Social minimum: There should be a floor below which nobody should be allowed to fall. Everybody should have access to a minimum level of resources but also public services – the basics that allow people to live with dignity in today’s society;
  
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  Equality of opportunity: Life chances should not depend on irrelevant factors such as your class, racial or gender background;
  
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  Fair distribution: Goods and other social goods should be fairly distributed and depend on the choices we make and the effort we put in rather than the brute luck of the family into which we were born.
  

This study found, on the one hand, that income has become more fairly distributed under New Labour and that child poverty had been reduced. On the other hand, however, the study found that despite these in-roads, wealth inequality is worse than under Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, social mobility has stalled, if not moved backwards and social equality, based on the gap between the highest and lowest incomes, is worse than in may other continental European countries.

The study concluded that the learning and skills sector in the UK needs to equip people not only with skills for employment but citizenship to enable social mobility and social justice.

This relative failure on social mobility has lead to an unprecedented bout of reform. Secondary schools are to be given ‘trust’ status similar to incorporation of colleges in the early 1990s. The local education authority (LEA) will take on a ‘commissioning’ role on behalf of children under its aegis so it will need to ensure sufficient school places are available but it will not be directly responsible as a provider responsible for its schools.

A Bill has been published to enact this major change, which only passed the second reading in the House of Commons with support from the opposition party. Meanwhile the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC⁵⁸) jointly commissioned Sir Andrew Foster to review the role of FE colleges. His report, entitled ‘Realising the Potential’, He made 80 recommendations, the majority of which have been incorporated, pretty much in their entirety, into a Government White Paper “Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances”. This white paper, hot off the press as this chapter goes to print makes a number of key recommendations, set to change the way in which Further Education in England connects with the agenda of employability, skills and social mobility.

The Paper sees the FE sector as the “powerhouse for delivering the skills at all levels that are needed to sustain an advanced, competitive economy and make us a fairer society, offering equal opportunities for all based on talent and effort, and not background”⁵⁹ The paper goes on to make a number of key recommendations:

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  Ensuring the mission, purpose and specialisms of FE providers relate directly to its role in skills, employability and contribution to the economy. Providers will be encouraged to developed centre of excellence in one or more of the vocational priorities and work with employers, private sector and national skills academies.
  
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  The trialing of learner accounts, aimed at enabling people to gain level 3⁶⁰, plus the introduction of an entitlement to free education for young adults aged, 19-25 to enable them to gain their first level 3 qualification.
  
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  The national roll-out of Train to Gain (see below
  
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  A national strategy to improve the quality of teaching within the sector, including a requirement for all teaching staff to undertake continuing professional development and mandatory qualifications for Principals.
  
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  A streamlining of the funding and qualifications framework within the sector, including the introduction of new diplomas for 14-19 education.
  

Shortly after Sir Andrew received his commission, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ‘Prime-Minister-in-Waiting’, Gordon Brown, commissioned Lord Sandy Leitch to examine the UK’s optimum skills mix in order to maximize economic growth and productivity by 2020; and in particular, to consider the different trajectories of skill levels the UK might pursue.

His interim report, entitled ‘Skills in the UK: The Long-Term Challenge’ was published on 5th December 2005. Key findings of ‘Skills in the UK: The Long-Term Challenge’; Lord Leitch; December 2005:

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  The UK has a strong economy and world-leading employment levels, but its productivity trails many key comparator nations; poor skills are a key contributor to this problem as well as having wider impacts on social welfare. 
  
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  Over the last decade, the skills profile of the working age population in the UK has improved.  For example, the proportion of adults with a degree has increased from a fifth to over a quarter of the population.
  
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  Despite these improvements, the UK still does not have a world-class skills base: over a third of adults in the UK do not have a basic school-leaving qualification – double the proportion of Canada and Germany;
  
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  Five million people have no qualifications at all; one in six adults do not have the literacy skills expected of an 11 year old and half do not have these levels of functional numeracy.
  
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  Looking ahead to 2020, global, demographic and technological change will place an even greater premium on the UK’s skills profile. 
  
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  New analysis conducted by the Review shows that, if the Government meets its current ambitious targets for improving the UK’s skills, by 2020:
  

The proportion of working age people without any qualifications will fall to 4 per cent; and the proportion of adults holding a degree will increase from 27 per cent to 38 per cent; and this will have significant benefits for the economy – increasing annual productivity growth by 0.2 per cent with a net benefit to the economy of £3 billion a year, equivalent to 0.3 per cent of GDP.
However, even if the UK can meet the current challenging targets, the nation’s human capital will still fail to be world-class. Considerable problems will remain; at least 4 million adults will still not have the literacy skills expected of an 11 year old and 12 million would not have numeracy skills at this level. 

The Review has analyzed more ambitious scenarios for 2020:

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  Tackling the stock of low skilled adults without qualifications, basic literacy and numeracy
  
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  Investing more in intermediate skills
  
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  Further increasing the proportion of adults holding a degree.
  

In all of the scenarios, the analysis shows the significant economic and social benefits that would result from higher productivity and employment gained through improving skills. 

The Leitch Review believes that the UK must urgently raise its game and set itself a greater ambition to have a world-class skills base by 2020.

The LSC under its new Chair, Chris Banks, and new Chief Executive, Mark Haysom, has launched its Agenda for Change. The key features of Agenda for Change are the development of six ‘themes’ focused on skills for employers, quality, funding, data, business excellence and reputation. Cross cutting themes related to equality of opportunity and governance underpin priorities in these areas. The unofficial ‘theme 7’ relates to the reduction of bureaucracy within the LSC itself, bringing more functions to regional offices, leaving key partner contacts at a local level. Published in August 2005, the document again puts the FE sector centre stage in engaging employers and responding to the national skills agenda. Below are the key priorities encapsulated within the six themes:

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  We will work together to create colleges valued by employers as the partner of choice for developing the skills they need.
  
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  We will work together to improve the quality of provision, funding excellence and promoting the very best to serve as beacons to others.
  
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  We will radically simplify our funding methodology and allocation process, making it more transparent and more responsive to changing needs.
  
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  We will sweep away the complexity that causes colleges to divert resources to collecting data of variable benefit.
  
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  We will develop our capital investment strategy to free back office resources and support improved management systems and processes and thus improve our business excellence.
  
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  We will work with colleges to identify ways in which they can secure their reputation as pivotal to delivering the education and training needs of the UK. ⁶¹
  

So, how does the College system respond? Before answering this question, we need to understand the current FE landscape.

The FE Landscape

There follows an extract from the aforementioned Foster Report, which sets out the nature of the UK FE College sector. The current statutory FE college sector comprises of a number of different ‘types’ of institutions, and within these broad organizational forms, there are wide differences in size and focus. The key categories, with descriptions, are set out below:

GFECs and tertiary colleges offer a broad range of vocational and academic subjects at different levels and cater for both young people and adults. There are around 250 across England. Their strength is in offering a broad range of provision in one setting. GFECs are diverse with complex and varied patterns of provision – a result of shifting national priorities over the past 12 years and different local needs and institutional arrangements. At their best they offer individually tailored ladders of opportunity from entry level up to higher education, rooted in local community needs. Tertiary colleges are a distinctive model. There are around 50 in England. Although they are not recognized as a separate category in official statistics, we received many representations about their strengths. Recent research by the Responsive College Unit claims that their success rates are at least as good as sixth form colleges and that they significantly out perform GFECs at all levels except entry level.

Sixth form colleges have traditionally catered for 16-19 year olds following A-level courses, but most have now broadened their curriculum and student profile. There are around 100 across England. They have a well evidenced track record in the delivery of full time provision for 16-19 year olds (their success rates are high at 76% in 2003/04). Yet the current planning system has created only two new sixth form colleges since incorporation.

Specialist colleges concentrate on specialist curriculum areas e.g. art and design and land based subjects. Because of their focus on particular sectors, they have well established links with employers and industry in their sector. There are 22 across England.

Specialist designated institutions, cater mainly for adults and a number are residential. There are 16 in England.

Over recent years the number of FE sector colleges has fallen considerably. There were around 460 FE colleges created at incorporation in 1993.

Colleges also vary considerably in size. The average number of learners at a GFEC is 12,000; the largest has over 45,000, the smallest has only 2,500. Sixth form colleges vary also: from around 570 to over 7,000 learners. The largest colleges have significant resources with annual budgets of up to £65 million. Specialist colleges tend to be smaller – for example the average funding allocation by the LSC for art and design colleges is £3.1 million. Most colleges get the majority of their income from public sources: on average 78% comes from the LSC, with 9% from fees from employers or individuals.

FIGURE 5

Composition of the FE college sector

The current statutory FE college sector comprises of a number of different ‘types’ of institutions

Source: DfES

Learners in colleges

Over 3 million learners attend GFEC and tertiary colleges every year and 229,000 attend sixth form colleges. The majority of enrolments are adults (aged over 19) studying on a part time basis (though the position in sixth form colleges is very different with the majority of enrolments (56%) under 19 studying on a full time basis). If we look at teaching hours however, the picture looks very different. Roughly half of GFEC and tertiary college provision is for 16-18 year olds and half is for adults. Long vocational courses (courses over 24 weeks) are the main form of learning at these colleges.

[Table 1] shows LSC funded learners in the FE sector (colleges and external institutions) by age, mode of attendance and gender since 1996/97.
Table 1

Learners (000) by age, mode of attendance and gender (LSC funded)

	1996/97	1997/98	1998/99	1999/00	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04
By age:
Below 19	676	672	646	634	625	647	687	701
19-59	2,585	2,600	2,501	2,409	2,503	2,873	3,084	3,001
60 and over	113	122	129	166	234	314	399	387
Age unknown	72	52	40	37	40	34	28	25
By mode of attendance:
Full-time full-year	717	690	670	667	638	636	691	700
Other full-time	233	247	233	205	213	246	237	231
Part-time	2,497	2,510	2,413	2,374	2,552	2,986	3,270	3,184
By gender:
Female	1,952	1,935	1,899	1,886	2,006	2,288	2,506	2,475
Male	1,495	1,512	1,416	1,359	1,396	1,580	1,691	1,639
Total	3,446	3,447	3,315	3,246	3,402	3,868	4,197	4,114

Learner numbers in 2003/04 were 668,000, (19%) higher than in 1996/97. The expansion in numbers is predominantly in adult learners and the over 60 age group has seen a particularly significant increase (more than trebled since 1996/97). The number of full time learners in 2003/04 is virtually unchanged from 1996/97 – part time learners account for the increase in numbers over the period.

The increase in the number of female learners (+27%) outstrips the increase in the number of male learners (+10%). This has further shifted the gender mix in favor of females (1996/97 females = 57% learners; 2003/04 females = 60% learners).

In 2003/04, 78% of learners in FE colleges were from white ethnic groups, 14% were from non-white ethnic groups and 7.5% were ‘not known/not provided’. Adults from non-white ethnic groups account for 8% of the adult population.

Colleges have more learners (both 16-19 and adult) who are relatively disadvantaged compared to the population as a whole and to learner populations in other educational establishment types. The proportion of GFEC learners who reside in Widening Participation (WP) postcodes⁶² is 29%, compared to 25% of the population. The proportion in sixth form colleges is 25%. The figures for school sixth forms and higher education are 19% and 20% respectively. And according to the Youth Cohort Survey (2002), for 16 and 17 year olds in full time education, 45% of 16 year olds in full time learning have parents in the bottom 3 National Statistics socio-economic classes (NS-SEC). In GFECs 56% come from those groups, and 42% in sixth form colleges (the figure for state schools is 41%).