AoC welcomes college exemption from franchising rule changes

David Hughes, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges, said: "AoC welcomes the DfE invitation to offer views on strengthening oversight of partnership provision. FE colleges have a history of delivering higher education via franchised models and have played a crucial role in making higher education accessible to students who would otherwise not study HE. We welcome the proposal to exempt colleges from the planned controls because they are already regulated by the Department for Education and FE agencies.

“150 colleges are already OfS registered so our initial assessment is that the exemption may barely be necessary for the 20 FE colleges who aren't on the OfS register, particularly as the Lifelong Learning Entitlement is due to expand the OfS role to cover Level 4 and 5 courses currently supported by FE loans. AoC will be responding to the consultation and encouraging DfE and OfS to continue to learn lessons from how franchised provision is regulated in the system"