High drop-out rate from Scottish colleges

A new report by the Scottish Funding Council has revealed that 28 per cent of college students in the country are dropping out of full-time further education before completing their courses.

A further 12 per cent of students finish their courses but fail to achieve the full qualification they hoped for.

However, a sharp rise in the number of people enrolling and the higher proportion of full-time courses available may account for the high drop-out rate.

There is also speculation that outreach programmes to enroll disadvantaged students into further education may have had an impact on the figures. Compared with the 2008-09 report there has been an increase in the number of college students from the postcode areas in which the 20 per cent most deprived members of the population live.

The Scottish Funding Council's chief executive, Mark Batho, said: “To an extent, the statistics reflect the challenges faced by colleges reaching out into communities and trying hard to get people involved in learning.

“Giving people the right opportunity in the right place with the right kind of support is really important in terms of people's progress through lifelong education, and so we will be working closely with colleges to seek improvement in this area.”

Sue Pinder, Principal of James Watt College, has spoken of her hope for the future and feels the report does not tell the full story. She said:

“There are a number of reasons why students leave James Watt College and some of these factors are not reflected by the statistics. One reason is that many of our students find work in their career of choice before completing their studies. In our opinion these are success stories.“

She added: “At James Watt College we are committed to retaining as many students as possible. We now have a retention strategy in place where we work closely with students, from the moment they enrol at the college, to iron out any possible future problems they may face.”

Any improvements in the situation, however, may be reliant on government funding which many fear may be further reduced. Deputy President of NUS Scotland, Graeme Kirkpatrick said:

“We fear that any reduction of funding by the government of college budgets, above and beyond last year’s devastating cuts, will lead to a further increase in drop-out rates and severely damaging cuts to courses, support and teaching hours.

“We need to see investment in student support, replacing the college bursary system with an entitlement to support, and we need to see college budgets protected.”