QAA marks Colleges Week

As the Association of Colleges celebrates this year's Colleges Week, we thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of our work with further education colleges across the UK.

QAA has around 60 college members, whose staff and students are active and valued contributors to our networks, events, publications and advisory groups.

Further Education colleges are also at the forefront of delivering the Access to Higher Education Diploma (AHED). More than a million students have taken AHED courses since QAA started managing the oversight of this provision in 1997, and many of those students have chosen to progress into higher education delivered by the same colleges at which they took those courses.

"This week we salute our friends and colleagues who do such brilliant work across the college sector – whose work transforms so many people's lives," says Jenny Allen, QAA's Head of Access to HE Regulation in a new blog to mark Colleges Week on our AHED site.

COLLABORATIONS

Next month will see an event at Birmingham City University on 29 April showcasing the work of a QAA-funded Collaborative Enhancement Project on supporting student transitions into college-based higher education. Led by BCU's Professor Matt O'Leary, the project has been in run in partnership with colleagues from Bishop Burton College, Derby College, Solihull College and University Centre, Walsall College and Nottingham College.

Professor O'Leary says: "Supporting flexible pathways and effective transitions in College-based Higher Education (CBHE) is a QAA funded Collaborative Enhancement Project funded involving student and staff participants from five FE colleges across England. During the project, students and staff have been working collaboratively in their subject specific case studies, engaging in iterative reflective practice by using an innovative cycle of collaborative observation (CoCO) to develop their reciprocal understanding of their learning and teaching experiences. To date, some of the topics explored include the challenges in adapting to differences in approaches to studying in HE (L4+) compared to FE (L3), understanding assessment criteria and marking rubrics at L4+, and fostering student confidence and independence. Participants are currently undertaking their second cycle of CoCO and are capturing their reflections in a series of co-authored blogs which will be published on the project webpage.

"In addition to their co-authored blogs, our student and staff participants will be sharing their experiences and findings from the project in joint presentations at an end of project showcase event on 29 April, hosted at Birmingham City University’s City South Campus. In keeping with the collaborative ethos of the project, students and staff participants will be co-presenting, sharing their experiences and reflections on working together to develop co-constructed approaches to developing effective transitions into CBHE. Project participants will also contribute to creating a set of recommendations of pedagogical principles and practices for CBHE providers to support students’ transitions and pathways through CBHE. Participants will also have the opportunity to collaborate in the writing of an academic article from the project."

As part of that project, Derby College's Ella Whitehead and Chrissie Draper have published a new blog about empowering students through active learning in which they argue that "for the college-based HE community, the message is clear: collaboration should not be optional, but a foundational necessity for the future of higher education courses".

That's not our only current Collaborative Enhancement Project (CEP) with a specific focus on the work of colleges. Announced in January, our new suite of CEPs includes an initiative led by Nottingham College which aims to establish a core set of inclusive and accessible quality assurance documentation, that can be adapted and used by colleges working with multiple validating partners to deliver higher education programmes.

Project lead Joanna Francis, Quality Improvement Manager for Higher Education and Adults at Nottingham College, says: “I am delighted to receive this funding to support the development of our college’s quality documentation. This will allow us to dedicate meaningful time for staff to engage in research and to create an enhanced quality framework toolkit. Our aim is to produce standardised, accessible resources that will strengthen our university-level provision and can be shared more widely with partner colleges.”

FOUR NATIONS

With about 30 or 40 providers joining us online for each meeting, our College HE Networking Community provides a dedicated space for higher education, quality and teaching & learning professionals from QAA member colleges to stay informed, connected and supported in our ever-changing tertiary education landscape.

"The College HE Networking Community provides a discursive space to meet colleagues from across the UK, and to address the topics affecting College HE," said QAA Membership Quality Specialist Lucy Leake. "It offers an opportunity for members to share practice and to discuss challenges, as well as being a discussion forum for the latest policy updates."

Our College HE Networking Community is chaired by Charlotte Scheffmann, Dean of Higher Education at East Lancashire Learning Group.

"Our sector is both a source of remarkable skills, ingenuity and expertise, and the site of unprecedentedly knotty questions and complexities," Charlotte says in a new QAA blog. "Coming together in our network allows HE-in-FE practitioners from across the country to share, discuss and begin to develop solutions to the problems and frustrations our sector faces."

Our College HE Networking Community will next meet on 7 May.

In Scotland, we work in partnership CDN (College Development Network) to deliver Scotland's Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP), a major initiative funded by the Scottish Funding Council, which aims to drive lasting improvement across colleges and universities through collaboration and innovation. Launched in autumn 2024, STEP has brought together students and staff from across Scotland's tertiary sector to devise, develop, implement and evaluate a diverse range of collaborative initiatives.

"Since its launch in 2024, STEP has provided opportunities for the different parts of the tertiary sector to work more closely together, tackling common challenges and learning from each other," says Dr Alison Eales, Quality Enhancement Manager at QAA Scotland. "This is as true for the sector agencies as it is for the institutions, and it is exciting to see how both QAA and CDN are benefitting from delivering the programme in partnership."

"Our strong partnership with QAA Scotland is a key part of STEP's success. Together, we bring shared expertise and a clear commitment to supporting enhancement across Scotland’s tertiary sector," adds Gail Toms, Delivery and Engagement Partner at CDN. "By working collaboratively, we are encouraging ambition and connection, strengthening inclusive practice and contributing to meaningful improvements for learners."

Commissioned by Medr, Wales's Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, and published in January a new report from QAA Cymru charts approaches to transitions from colleges into and through higher education, exploring a broad range of examples from across Wales, Scotland and England.

And on 28 April, we will host our Northern Ireland Enhancement Conference 2026 at Belfast Metropolitan College, which will feature contributions from both universities and colleges in Northern Ireland.

Other ongoing QAA initiatives which also have particular value and relevance for the college sector include our work on short-cycle course characteristics, which our Quality Enhancement & Standards Specialist (and Cornwall College governor) Dr Nick Watmough blogs about here, and our development of a micro-credentials framework – led by our cross-Wale-Scotland-and-Northern-Ireland working group – whose work QAA Quality Manager Dr Ann Cotterill talks about in another recent blog.

Meanwhile, our Lead Policy Officer for the Devolved Nations Ciaran Donaghy has recently written about the value of tertiary-based approaches adopted in both Scotland and Wales. And the latest issue of our monthly Membership publication Practice Matters aligns its focus with the "skills for all" theme of this year's College's Week, as it looks at developing employability skills through collaboration.