Colleges

Scotland's colleges are the largest provider of lifelong learning across the country. The 43 Colleges deliver further and higher education and training to around 500,000 students every year.

Scotland's Colleges is the policy and representative voice of Scotland's colleges of further and higher education. The organisation strongly supports the development of the SCQF, particularly as a tool for improving access and progression in education and training. It is vital that all college staff are now aware of and using the SCQF.

Much work has already been carried out to support the use and promotion of SCQF in colleges. Activity undertaken includes the creation and dissemination of SCQF marketing material for use in college prospectuses and websites, and free SCQF workshops for quality and marketing staff groups as well as those involved in programme design.

Most colleges have already added information on the SCQF to their prospectus and website. Partnership working to build colleges' capacity to credit rate is also extremely important. Many colleges have started to build capacity in specialist staff teams in order to respond to commercial opportunities when they arise. 

For more information and assistance, please contact the SCQF Executive Team:

Credit rating and capacity building Paula Cleary

Marketing and promotion of the SCQF Samantha Houten Feeley

SCQF Project for Capacity Building in Scotland’s Colleges

The SCQF Partnership has been keen to encourage more colleges to participate in credit rating and has offered a series of free Capacity Building Workshops since 2009 which many college staff have attended.
In addition, SCQF Partnership recently invited all colleges interested in credit rating youth centred provision, possibly working in partnership with an external organisation, to submit proposals for partial funding, provided by the Scottish Funding Council.

All colleges within Scotland are recognised as Credit Rating Bodies for the SCQF and those who have embraced credit rating have found it to be extremely useful in recognising valuable learning within their own college or in partnership with third party organisations. 

With the launch of Curriculum of Excellence there is a greater emphasis than ever to recognise the achievements of young people within the senior phase and the SCQF is the ideal tool through which to do this as it allows other learning programmes to be nationally recognised and to sit alongside other mainstream qualifications on the Framework.
Many colleges have had success in developing excellent programmes for young people especially in the area of More Choices, More Chances provision but many of these programmes are not recognised on the SCQF.
This project’s four main aims are:

•    To help overcome any perceived barriers to credit rating within colleges;
•    To further assist in increasing capacity for credit rating within the Further Education sector;
•    To increase the amount of youth centred programmes on the Framework; and most importantly
•    The building of sustainability in credit rating within FE colleges in Scotland.

An experienced judging panel considered all the applications and the following colleges were successful and had their submissions approved.

•    John Wheatley College
•    Borders College
•    Kilmarnock College
•    Adam Smith College

Although no two programmes within the project are the same, the group is welcoming the opportunity to work together to maximise learning from each other’s experiences and minimise duplication of effort in establishing systems. Their intention is also to share their increased credit rating expertise with other partners including sister colleges to further develop capacity building in credit rating across Scotland.

The four colleges have until mid March to credit rate their chosen programme and have it displayed on the SCQF database. During this time, they will be able to call upon additional support from Frances Thom, SCQF Project Officer who said: “I was really impressed with the enthusiasm of the group and am looking forward to working with them over the next few months.”

Details of progress of the four colleges will be made available on the SCQF website, along with a full report of their experiences at the end of the project.