QAA publishes report on South Cheshire College

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has published a report on standards and quality at South Cheshire College (the College) following its review in March 2016.

A team of QAA reviewers visited the College and judged that the academic standards of the awards it offers on behalf of degree-awarding bodies and other awarding organisations, and the quality of the information about its learning opportunities, meet UK expectations.

However, reviewers judged that the quality of its student learning opportunities does not meet UK expectations and the enhancement of its student learning opportunities requires improvement to meet UK expectations.

The review report identified two features of good practice at the College:

• the scheduled weekly learning hour that forms part of a wider staff development strategy to support higher education teaching

• the approach to employer engagement in programme development and delivery as part of a wider strategy for developing student employability and supporting local regeneration.

The review report made a number of recommendations to the College, including:

• produce and maintain definitive records for each Pearson Education programme which constitute the reference point for each individual programme and qualification

• introduce a formal internal approval system which subjects each new programme to rigorous academic scrutiny.

  It also recommends that the College provide more effective student representation at course and institutional level.

  A spokesperson for the College said: ‘We welcome the report from QAA.  We are pleased that QAA recognises that the College’s Higher Education provision meets UK expectations in both the academic standards of the awards that we offer on behalf of degree-awarding bodies and in the quality of the information available about our learning opportunities. 

  ‘The College is actively working towards addressing all of the recommendations made in the report and we have already submitted our action plan.  We are confident that these will be completed well ahead of the deadlines specified by QAA.’

  QAA’s Higher Education Reviews are carried out by experts from other universities and colleges. Every review team includes a student reviewer, because QAA believes that students should be partners in the quality assurance of their education.

  The review team comprised Tom Cantwell (independent reviewer), Anthony Turjansky (Edge Hill University), India-Chloe Woof (student reviewer, University of Sheffield) and Sam Butler (student reviewer, the University of Law).