10 City of Glasgow College Annual Report & Accounts 2020-21
Performance Overview 2020-21
Principal's Performance Statement
Principal's Report
In this exceptional year, and after the successes of 2019-
20, the impact of the pandemic on the performance of
the College is finally evident.
While this year's performance will only really make sense
when contextualised against the rest of the sector,
continued lockdowns have meant the College has faced
unprecedented challenges in sustaining the continuity of
learning, with the result that over 2500 students (14% of
enrolments) have been required to extend, defer or repeat
their studies.
Throughout, we have continued to prioritise the health
and wellbeing of our staff and students and having
invested over £350,000, we are confident that we have
lessened the pandemic's impact within the College.
At the end of the academic year, of the 27,000 learners
and 1500 staff, 222 learners (less than 1%) and 73
staff (5%) had, to our knowledge, been diagnosed with
Covid. At the outset, we were the first College to close
our buildings and pivot to e-learning. We re-opened our
campuses as soon as possible to ensure continuity of
learning for those courses where practical assessment is
essential.
With subsequent and sustained lockdowns making such
provision increasingly difficult, the College led the sector
in making a commitment to support all non-completing
students in 2020-21 to extend, defer or repeat their
course. This included contacting students who had
withdrawn in year to offer professional careers guidance,
ensuring that all students were provided with appropriate
guidance on options and choices.
Given the levels of disruption to learning, it is, therefore,
no longer appropriate to assess whether we are ontrack against the Scottish Funding Council's
successful
completion performance targets.
At a sector level, Colleges Scotland - a representative
body for all colleges in Scotland - estimated that noncompletion rates might increase
by up to 30% in 2020-
21. In this context, we can be pleased that completion
rates within the College have significantly bettered this
estimate.
Furthermore, when we take account of those who were
required to extend, defer and repeat courses we see
successful completion has not been impacted as much
as we might have expected, given Glasgow's sustained
lockdown restrictions.
This outcome is testimony to the extraordinary effort
of the staff team across the College. Their impact
can be seen in the continued endorsement of our
work by external compliance bodies, including the
acknowledgement of the quality of our learning and
teaching by Education Scotland.
Our success is also evident in the achievement of
external awards. We are particularly proud to have been
recognised and invited to become part of the WorldSkills
UK Centre of Excellence programme. This is a fantastic
opportunity for the College to embed excellence and lead
the way in supporting and delivering world class technical
education.
The College continues to lead through its creativity and
innovation. Indeed, as the six million plus adults in the
UK who are unable to read or write face an uncertain
future post pandemic, the College has provided world
leadership in adult and digital literacy. With support and
endorsement from Nesta, Nesta Scotland and Ufi Voch
Tech, this year we pioneered how adults can read and
write on their smartphones - a world-wide first for adult
literacy students. Moreover, by creating the first app of
its kind to feature voice and handwriting recognition and
now available cross-platform, the College is uniquely
enabling learners to build their literacy and digital skills
simultaneously.
Incubating a culture of innovative thinking is key to the
ongoing performance of the College. It is one part of the
ongoing work in support of the College's commitment to
its own continuous improvement.
As the external environment becomes more demanding,
so we become more demanding of ourselves and,
already looking ahead, we are currently preparing
for reassessment by the European Foundation for
Quality Management - one of the most challenging
assessments in the world. We look forward to building
its recommendations into our ongoing effort in the year
ahead.
Volume of learning delivered (Credits)
The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) the body that
funds colleges in Scotland, requires each College to
deliver a set volume of learning each year. This volume
is measured in the form of credits, whereby a credit is
equivalent to 40 hours of learning. Each academic year,
the SFC agrees a credit target for each college region.
Regional Boards then allocate this among the individual
colleges. If a college fails to deliver its Credit target, the
SFC can claw back the associated funding.
This year, 2020-21, the College delivered a total of