86 City of Glasgow College Annual Report & Accounts 2020-21
9. Appendices
i. Application Data
1.1 Table 1 provides a five-year trend for full time courses for the main College intake in
August (where entry is based on selection criteria) and shows a decrease in 1st choice
(headcount) applications each year, with a 1.7% decrease for this year AY2021/22 which is
less than the 3.4% decrease between AY2019/20 and AY2020/21.
Over several years a similar drop in applications has been experienced across the Further
Education (FE) Sector in Scotland.
1.2. Factors likely to have influenced this downturn in full time applications include:
• a change in demographics with the number of young people in Scotland
(particularly Glasgow) continuing to decline;
• Students staying on to S5 and S6 at school;
• the impact of widening access policies currently being implemented by
universities which target the traditional FE College market; and
• the impact of Government youth employment strategies which offer part time
access to college for school pupils studying in the Senior Phase.
Table 1 - 5 Year Applications Trend 2017-21
23084
20,281 19,905 19,230 18,906
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
Application
Headcount
2017/18
Application
Headcount
2018/19
Application
Headcount
2019/20
Application
Headcount
2020/21
Application
Headcount
2021/22
Applications Trend 2017-2021
1
Appendices