Credit Guidance for Colleges 2024-25

3. Priorities and flexibility: For AY 2024-25 the overall aim is to allow colleges to continue to adapt to the changing needs of their region and provide learning opportunities to sustain a pipeline of educated and skilled people who will be critical to our economic prosperity, and to upskill/reskill the existing workforce.
4. Disrupted learning and deferred students: We will continue to mitigate the risk of reduced educational attainment and ensure that students whose studies were disrupted in recent AYs can complete their studies, build their skills, and achieve their qualifications. We know that colleges want to ensure that these students secure employment opportunities or pursue further studies. Our guidance therefore continues to recognise that, in this coming AY, colleges may need to deliver additional learning to those students progressing from school or college courses where their previous study was impacted by safeguarding measures. We have provided flexibility within our guidance to fund this additional learning. We aim to review with the sector if/how we should continue to recognise disrupted learning from AY 2025-26.
5. Continued provision of full-time places: Although there is always a degree of uncertainty, we expect the level of demand for full-time Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) provision to be similar to AY 2022-23 levels.
6. Re-training and re-skilling: We expect there will continue to be a need across the country for re-training, up-skilling, and re-skilling to equip people for new employment opportunities. This includes up-skilling for those school leavers who moved directly into employment in recent years but who may benefit from flexible learning opportunities to improve their skills base and meet the needs of the economy. We also expect colleges to make available relevant short courses to enable people to get quickly back into employment.
7. Prioritising senior phase school engagement: We expect colleges to continue to prioritise activity with senior phase school pupils.
8. School pupils outwith senior phase: Colleges should de-prioritise other school/college courses outwith the senior phase. Colleges can continue to claim up to 1.5% of their credits for students outwith the senior phase for AY 2024-25. We will review this policy for future years in liaison with the sector.
9. Credits for full-time students: The normal claim for a full-time (FT) FE course should be 16 credits; with FT HE between 12 and 15 credits. There is a need for continued flexibility at this time as colleges continue to address the needs of those students impacted by disrupted learning in recent years. Flexibility is also required to support employability needs and pathways to further study at a more advanced level and we recognise that some courses will exceed normal FT credits for legitimate educational reasons. SFC will monitor the average claim for FT students over the AY, including additional enrolments supplementing their study.
10. Claims for individual students/programmes will vary but colleges should not exceed an overall average of 17 credits for FT FE students or 15 credits for FT HE students across the FT cohort, including those additional part-time (PT) courses on which these students Overall average credits per FT student in excess of this are likely to be subject to further scrutiny.
11. Colleges can include targeted guidance credits for students, provided that overall average claims do not exceed as the amounts indicated above.
12. SFC has been in liaison with colleges during AY 2023-24 as some work towards the averages indicated above. It has been noted that in some cases, credits for FT students will be above the amount indicated above, hence the guidance concentrating on an overall average. If any colleges continue to have concerns regarding this element of our guidance, they should contact SFC.

13. SFC provides teaching funding to colleges that undertake to deliver a specified volume of activity measured in ‘credits’ (1 credit is equivalent to 40 hours of learning). This guidance sets out our core principles for eligibility for this credit funding, and the programmes and students eligible for it.
14. Funding is provided to colleges to help improve the employment prospects and/or personal progression of students. Students should only be enrolled on programmes that are suitable for their needs and abilities, and all programmes should make an appropriate addition to students’ ongoing development.
15. Funding is provided for Scottish-domiciled or ’home fee’ students, refugees and asylum seekers who have been properly enrolled, and whose learning is being supported and individual educational requirements are being met by the college. There should, therefore, be a suitable level of engagement with the student, which is pro-active, managed by the college, and relates to the funding implicitly being claimed in respect of that student from SFC.
16. Residency guidance, which was updated in AY 2023-24, should be used when assessing whether a student is eligible for a SFC funded place. Any updated guidance for AY 2024-25 will become available on SFC’s website.
17. Colleges are funded using regional indicators of demand, with the assumption that student recruitment will take place primarily within the respective college region, and the expectation that the vast majority of provision is delivered within each college’s region. If a college wishes to deliver provision outwith its region, g. for nationally recognised activity, this should be discussed in advance with the college’s SFC Outcome Agreement Manager.
18. The flowchart at Annex A sets out the eligibility criteria to determine whether credits can be claimed for a student and/or programme of study.

Required date

19. Colleges can claim credits for FT students on courses lasting for over 20 weeks if they are still active after 5 weeks from the course start date. For shorter courses the required date continues to be after a quarter of the course has been delivered.
20. Therefore, based on a full seven-day week, the required date would be day 35. Students would be eligible for funding if they attended on day 36 or later.
21. If attendance at classes is not possible, colleges should mark students as present for funding purposes where classes are interrupted, if they were in attendance before the period of interruption began.

Distance-learning

22. Credits should only be claimed for distance learning students who remain active and fully engaged with their course.

Third-party provision

23. The number of credits claimed for third-party provision, including distance learning, must be commensurate with the college resource spent on developing and delivering the provision.

Programmes fully funded from non-SFC sources

24. Programmes of learning which are fully funded from non-SFC sources are not eligible for funding. For example, where students or a sponsor (such as their employer or collaborative partner or another public body) have paid for the full cost of their programme of study, the students are regarded as non-fundable and credits should not be claimed, regardless of whether the college or the employer/collaborative partner received the fee.

Students funded from multiple sources

25. There will be rare occasions where a student’s overall programme of study consists of activity eligible for credit funding and activity funded from other sources. In such situations colleges must ensure that credits claimed only relate to parts of the programme that are not covered by other funding. Colleges will be expected to be able to justify their approach as part of the audit process. If it appears that credits are being claimed for activity that is already funded from other sources, we will scrutinise this with a view to the credits claim being removed from the final AY 2024-25 data and/or future claims (dependent upon when the issue is identified).

English for Speakers of Other Languages

26. Colleges are expected to continue to fund English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision from their core teaching allocation. Colleges and local authorities/Community Learning Partnerships should, as in previous years, discuss the provision in their region/community, how local need is to be met, and the funding contribution from each partner. This must be set out in joint delivery plans.

School/college engagement

27. Colleges work closely with schools across the whole curriculum and all levels.
    A key element of the Scottish Government’s ‘Developing the Young Workforce’ programme is to provide vocational education to pupils in the senior phase of secondary school. SFC’s Outcome Agreement measures include credits delivered to senior phase pupils studying vocational qualifications and credits delivered to learners at S3 and above.
28. As referenced above, in AY 2024-25 colleges are permitted to use up to 1.5% of their credits for those pupils outwith the senior phase. We will review this policy for future years in liaison with the sector.

Foundation Apprenticeships

29. SFC has been responsible for the funding of Foundation Apprenticeships (FAs) delivered directly through Scotland’s colleges since AY 2021-22. FAs that are delivered through local authorities or independent training providers will continue to be funded by Skills Development Scotland (SDS).
30. Colleges claiming credits for FAs are expected to comply with this credit guidance and record this activity in FES, in compliance with the relevant FES Guidance. The number of credits that colleges can claim for an FA can be found in Annex B.

31. Where SFC is the sole source of funding (excluding tuition fees), the credits to be claimed should be equal to the number of planned SQA (or other awarding body) credits to be delivered, except for students enrolled on programmes designed for students with educational support needs. For example, a Higher National Certificate (HNC) is worth 12 credits[1] over one year and a Higher National Diploma (HND) is worth 30 credits over two years. A National Certificate (NC) is typically worth 12 credits but colleges often choose to deliver additional units on these programmes to develop core skills or improve employability.
32. In cases where colleges enrol students on programmes that lead to multiple awards, the credits claimed should be based on the planned learning hours and the claim reduced to take account of teaching overlap across the awards.
33. In cases where the units delivered do not have a credit value, the fundable credits should be derived based on the planned learning hours divided by 40 (1 credit = 40 hours of learning).
34. If a student has greater difficulty in learning than the majority of other students, and they have been assessed by the college or an external agency as requiring additional support, they should be enrolled on a programme designed to meet their educational support needs and claimed against SFC Price Group 5. Credit claims for these programmes should always be calculated based on planned learning hours divided by 40, irrespective of whether the units delivered have a credit value or not.
35. For programmes containing a mix of credits and other activity, the credit claim should be based on the total credits plus the planned learning hours divided by 40 (1 credit = 40 learning hours) for the non-credited units.
36. Planned learning hours should represent a realistic and sensible estimation of the number of hours that students will normally be required to undertake in their programme of learning. Examples of what may be counted as planned learning hours include:

• Class contact time.
• Supported study time.
• Supported learning (online learning, blended learning, e-assessment and open learning).
• Tutorial time.
• Any additional time which the college requires for delivering the course and/or supporting the student (g. assessment time).

37. For work experience that is not accredited, colleges can claim 1 credit for every 80 hours of work experience. The hours claimed for
    non-accredited work experience/ placements should be reasonable and justifiable within the audit process.
38. For programmes of study where SFC is not the sole source of funding, the credits to be claimed should be calculated as above, but then reduced to take account of the non-SFC income. Total funding (from all sources) received for such programmes should be reasonable and justifiable within the audit process.
39. It can be difficult to achieve economically viable class sizes for Gaelic courses. SFC therefore permits colleges to claim additional credits to achieve a break-even position for such courses. For example, if a college needs a class of 10 to make a class viable but can only enrol 8 students, it can increase its credit claim by 25% to achieve that break-even position. Colleges should inform their Outcome Manager, as soon as possible, where they consider it is necessary to take such action.

Re-skilling and upskilling programmes

40. If colleges plan to claim credits for any re-skilling/upskilling courses, claims should be based on the credit value/planned learning hours divided by 40 method.

[1] If colleges are engaged in piloting ‘HN NextGen’ courses, which involves additional learning activity, they can claim 15 credits.

41. SFC recognises that some subject areas are more expensive to deliver than others. For example, an engineering course might cost more to deliver than a business course, as it may require specialist equipment and/or may only be safely delivered to small classes because of health and safety considerations.
42. For this reason, SFC worked with the sector to categorise all programmes across five individual price groups, based on the course subject classification (‘superclass’). The price for each price group is shown below:

43. These prices are based on the rebased credit thresholds for colleges. A mapping from superclass subject areas to price groups is provided in Annex C. The mapping is based on the superclass coding for the course which should best describe the academic subject area.

44. Any student that undertakes 15 credits or more, on a single programme of study, in a single AY – including spanning courses – should be considered full-time (FT). In addition, HNC students undertaking 12 credits on a single programme in a single AY should also be considered FT.
45. It should be noted that the definition of FT study for student support purposes can be different, in some cases, from that outlined above. This is because student support relates to the Department for Work and Pensions rules on claiming social security benefits. SFC’s student support guidance contains more information on this.

46. Colleges should only claim a maximum of one FT course/programme per year per student. Students can achieve FT FE or HE qualifications, such as an NC or HNC, by completing 12 credits. However, a student’s employment prospects can be improved if they complete additional units that better prepare them for the workplace.
47. Colleges should determine at the start of a course the number of planned credits, and this should represent a realistic and sensible estimation of the number of hours that students will normally undertake in their programme of learning. SFC does not expect the number of planned credits to increase in-year. If students undertake additional units that were not planned at the course outset, then these should be reported under a separate programme for which the students should complete a separate enrolment form.
48. The total credits per student across all enrolments will be monitored by SFC. Individual students on FE programmes may count towards more than 17 credits and HE students more than 15 credits, but the college must not exceed those levels, on average, across all FT FE or HE students. PT students should fall below these levels.

Disrupted learning and deferred students

49. Colleges will be able to claim additional credits for any learning carried over from AYs 2019-20 to 2023-24. We expect colleges to use this flexibility reasonably and responsibly. For example, if a student only has to complete part of a unit, the claim should reflect that circumstance. For students progressing under these circumstances, we will permit colleges to claim more than one FT equivalent (FTE) place for students in AY 2024-25, to allow students to be funded for their new course plus any learning carried over from earlier years. Please also note the guidance on the average claim per FT student above.

50. Each student will only be eligible to have the equivalent of one FT fee waiver per year, irrespective of whether the tuition fee is payable by SFC, Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) or another government body.

Richard Maconachie FCCA
Director of Finance

The number of credits that colleges can claim for FAs is set out in the table below:

* Credit claim for FA delivery in a single year.
** Credit claim for each year where FA delivery is over two years.