South Lanarkshire College has once again provided students with a high-quality learning experience for session 2022 to 2023 given the recently published Scottish Funding Council Performance Indicators. The Academic Year 2022 – 2023 was the most stable year, post-Covid, in terms of student recruitment and continuity of learning, teaching and assessment for students at the College. The legacy of Covid is still felt and requires adaptations to approaches in supporting students’ learning and heightened mechanisms in relation to the support services offered to students at the college.

The Annual Engagement Visit by Education Scotland in AY 2022-2023 indicated that students felt valued and supported, curriculum design was robust and improvements and flexibility were driven in curriculum areas. There were no main points for action identified. The high-quality learning and teaching in operation, coupled with improvements to support services, has led to some marked improvements from the previous academic year as illustrated below.

It is to be noted that the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) National Performance Indicators (PIs) have not been published. The expected date of publication is 29 May 2024. At that point an external benchmarking exercise will take place and be reported on. Of note are the following:

• Attainment rates for FE FT which have significantly improved by 12% from 2021-22;
• Attainment rates for FE PT which have significantly improved by 8.1% from 2021-22;

There has been a decline in HE FT and HE PT attainment rates which has been identified and is being actioned accordingly. It is to be noted that, in session 2022 to 2023, Higher Education (HE) provision on a full-time (FT) basis accounted for 14% of our overall college activity with HE PT equating to only 5% of our overall activity.

The college offers provision to students of all ages with the following ages, in particular, completing their courses successfully:

• 706 students on courses lasting 160hrs or more aged under 18yrs completed successfully at 71.5%, which is 1.6% above 2021/22 levels;
• 379 students on courses lasting 160hrs or more aged between 21-24yrs completed successfully at 76.4%, which is 3.4% above 2021/22 levels;
• 564 students on courses lasting 160hrs or more aged between 25yrs-40yrs completed successfully at 72.8% which is 0.3% below 2021/22 levels.

On FE course lasting more than 160hrs, males achieved more than their females counterparts by 8.9%.

On HE courses lasting more than 160hrs, females achieve more than their male counterparts by 3.2%.

The extensive additional support provided by teams for groups of students facing the greatest barriers to learning has had positive impact with:

• Students from SIMD10 (350) achieving 70.6% which is 2% above 2021/22 levels;
• Students from SIMD20 (655) achieving 70.5% which is which is 4.1% above 2021/22 levels;
• 228 students who declared that they had a disability completed successfully at 64.2% which is the same level as 2021/22;
• 75 students from a Care experienced background completed successfully at 51.7% which is a slight increase of 0.3% from the 2021/22 levels;
• 32 students from ethnic minority backgrounds completed successfully at 68.4% which is 4.8% below 2021/22 levels.

Further analysis and action planning is required around the experience of those students in the key groups of disability, care experienced and ethnic minority to improve success.

78% of academic staff at the college hold a teaching qualification with others working towards completion of the Teaching Qualification in Further Education (TQFE) and 43% of lecturing staff have registered with the GTCS to date.

The College is proud to serve the needs of the local community and continues to demonstrate that its student-centred approach enables students to receive high quality learning and teaching enabling students to progress into their chosen destination.

View the Performance Indicator data here

Find out about College performance visit: Scottish Funding Council