The UK Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. Find out more about the Code of Practice for Official Statistics at the UK Statistics Authority’s website.
Overview
College Performance Indicators (2022-23)
Figure 1: Outcomes for FE Student Enrolments on Full-Time Recognised Qualifications 2013-14 to 2022-23 at Scotland’s Colleges
Academic years 2020-21 to 2021-22 were heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic as described in previous publications and thus are not directly comparable with other academic years.
- The key points around the known results for 42,669 full-time further education (FE) students enrolled on recognised qualifications in 2022-23 are as follows:
Total FE full-time student enrolments have decreased by 0.5% (224) from 2021-22.
74.7% of enrolled students on full-time FE programmes completed their course (up against 70.7% from 2021-22).
Of these completions, Successful Completion rates in 2022-23 were 4.6 percentage point (pp) higher than 2021-22 (63.6% versus 59% respectively) and 1.6pp lower than 2018-19 (pre-pandemic).
A further 11.1% completed their course but did not gain the qualification they were aiming for (down 0.6% from 2021-22). Some of those students may gain their award later.
Withdrawals saw a 4pp decrease during this time (25.3% versus 29.3%).
For large colleges1 success rates ranged from 52.3%-72.8% in 2022-23 and for small colleges success rates ranged from 50% up to 77.4%.
Figure 2: Outcomes for FE Student Enrolments on Part-Time Recognised Qualifications 2018-19 to 2022-23 at Scotland’s Colleges
Figure 2 shows that the total number of FE students on part-time programmes of study has increased in 2022-23 by 2.9% (2795) from 2021-22.
The results show that FE students who enrolled on shorter programmes are more likely to complete their studies, with those on 10 hours or less have a 95.1% success rate, with the success rate dropping with increasing hours (though, there is a 4.6% increase between ‘160 and 320 hours’ and 320 hours up to full-time’).
Figure 3: Level of Achievement for Students Completing an FE Course of 160 Hours or More Who Did Not Achieve ‘Full’ Success in 2022-23 at Scotland’s Colleges
Academic years 2020-21 to 2021-22 were heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic as described in previous publications and thus are not directly comparable with other academic years.
There are 12,067 students enrolled on FE programmes in 2022-23 who completed without “full” success. This is a subset of numbers from Figure 1 (full-time) and Figure 2 (part-time) and excludes students below 160 hours and those who were not funded by SFC that are included in the earlier charts.
It shows that 19.6% (2,363) of these students gained at least 75% of the units on their programme and 49.6% (5,984) passed over 50% of the units attempted.
At the other end of the scale 20.4% (2,456) of these students failed to achieve any of the units for which they enrolled.