The Further Education Curriculum in England : An Introduction

More than three million students in England, the majority adult, but including over 60 per cent of 16 and 17 year-olds in full-time and part-time education, attend colleges in the further education - or FE sector. The government sees the sector as making a key contribution to building the skilled and motivated workforce needed to take on international competition. The sector's 457 colleges - colleges of further education, tertiary colleges, sixth-form colleges, and others - offer a variety of education and training programmes different in many ways from those found in other educational institutions, such as schools or universities.
Despite the size and importance of the FE sector, it remains a dark continent of education, known mostly by native report. Does an FE curriculum exist? Or is it merely an infusion of the neighbouring cultures of school and university from one direction, and industrial training from another?
This book provides a brief, accessible account of the further education its scope, content, aims, students, funders. providers, accrediting bodies, modes of attendance, learning methods, and outcomes.
Anna Frankel and Frank Reeves argue that further education possesses a recognisable dissociative or multiform curriculum, bonded by common characteristics, such as voluntary and part-time attendance, an emphasis on practical skill training, and a common statutory and organisational framework. But the curriculum is still segmented into academic, vocational, and training programmes, accompanied by a plethora of examining bodies and means of accreditation.
There are pressures to establish a more coherent pattern of provision, sensitive to student need. The further education curriculum is changing rapidly. The authors describe the emergence of a radical, new. individualised, learning-centre-based FE. underpinned by the Further Education Funding Council's funding methodology.