Defining Higher Education in Norfolk
I am sure this week’s newspaper headlines will be about how Universities are going to be forced into attracting more “working class” students into Higher Education.
I’d argue institutions like City College are already providing Higher Education courses for the future workforce in Norfolk.
Its right that a national debate is held about the nature of the changes proposed for higher education in our country – these are BIG changes proposed. However, I do get frustrated about how Higher Education in Further Education colleges like mine gets missed off the agenda.
At City College Norwich we have over 1500 people studying on Higher Education courses, mostly professional programmes validated by UEA – so come to City College Norwich and you get a UEA degree. 99.9% of our HE students come from Norfolk.
I wonder how many HE students in UEA and Norwich University College of the Arts (NUCA) also come from Norfolk? Not that those two Universities should concentrate solely on Norfolk as City College Norwich does – UEA is an internationally renowned, research intensive institution and NUCA has a very specialist subject area which attracts students from all over the country and both these things are very good for Norfolk. But when we talk about – particularly in the press – the impact of the HE changes on potential Norfolk students, we don’t often include how it affects City College Norwich. Watch this space – we intend to change that situation and get our message across about just how important City College Norwich’s HE provision is to our local economy!
Lets start with one such item: just this week we photographed 70 new students who have started on a Foundation Degree (first day this week) as Healthcare practitioners. All of these people are employed in Norfolk: in our hospitals, trusts. PCTs etc. Making sure that we have the right people with the right skills and the right qualifications to ensure our healthcare system works in our county is a “no-brainer”. Just the job that City College Norwich is “on the case”!
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