In September, colleges should be loudly celebrating 30 years of independence. The Further and Higher Education Act of 1992 created over 400 exempt charities, moving further education colleges from local authority control to independence, in a manner similar to the freedoms granted to polytechnics previously.
Given the DfE has recently determined that the far more recent experiment of academisation and multi-academy trusts are a success, despite very little evidence to support this contention, it is surely an appropriate time to evaluate how 30 years has changed the further education landscape.
