Improved exam results will mean more money for colleges

The Further Education Funding Council for England (FEFC) is using some of this money to set up the "achievement fund".

To qualify for an award from the fund, colleges must be able to show an improvement in the rate of achievement between 1998/99 and 1999/2000 of at least two percentage points.

Awards made will be directly proportional to the size of the improvement.

Colleges which had the worst achievement rates - those in the bottom quartile of the sector - in 1998/99 will receive double the award money they would otherwise have received.

But colleges whose retention rate falls between 1998/99 and 1999/2000 will not qualify for any cash.

Opposition

Nicola Watson, principal of Scarborough Sixth Form College, said the fund should really be called an "improvement fund".

"We already have a 90% A-level pass rate, and have had every year for the past three years," she said.

"We may improve that by two percentage points, but the point is that our rate of achievement and retention is already high.

"We are happy for people to get money for improvement, but the fact that this is called an achievement fund means that many people are not happy with it.

"They're looking at movement, encouraging the colleges which aren't doing so well, but they're not encouraging us."

She said that as well as rewarding colleges which improved their achievement by at least two percentage points, the fund should reward those who reached a certain set high level of achievement.

However she was less concerned about "pots of money" such as the achievement fund, than she was about the "real problem of core funding" for colleges, which she said was not rising with inflation.

Kevin Watson, principal of Winstanley College in Wigan, said the only fair way of measuring colleges' achievements was by assessing the value they add to each individual student's performance.

He said: "The achievement fund does sound a bit of a blunt instrument.

"Different colleges get students with different qualifications when they start.

"We have a 96% pass rate at A-level and it is scarcely possibly to achieve a 2% rise."

Consultation

The FEFC consulted further education colleges before deciding to go ahead and set up the fund.

It says that out of the 239 colleges which responded, 73% supported the idea - but 19%, almost one in five colleges, were against it.

A circular setting out the FEFC's use of the Standards Fund in 2000/01 states that some colleges had "expressed concern that the initiative appeared to reward those colleges which had performed poorly in the past".

A number of colleges had been unhappy because the "proposal did not recognise the place of value-added in measuring achievement".

But the circular says: "The Council recognises that colleges have strong views on this proposal, but it intends to support the government's agenda to raise standards, and will therefore implement the achievement fund".

Emer Clarke, head of the FEFC's quality improvement unit, said there were other rewards available for high-achieving colleges.

These included the opportunity to win accredited status, which meant they received �50,000 to help them disseminate good practice.

Five other schemes

Under the arrangements for the achievement fund, colleges will be expected to provide the FEFC with their achievement and retention data for 1999/2000 in December 2000.

Awards from the fund will be made during the 2000/01 financial year, and will be paid to colleges before the end of March 2001.

The FEFC has allocated Standards Fund money for 2000/01 to five other schemes.

Under one, called "college improvement", as in 1999/2000, financial assistance will be given to colleges causing concern, and for post-inspection support.