Colleges Week 2019 – Staff and students love Scarborough TEC

Scarborough TEC staff and students are busy preparing for Colleges Week 2019, the annual week when Further Education Colleges across the UK join in to show the reasons they love what they do.

Colleges Week 2019 runs from 13^th-17^thMay and, with their motto ‘Love Our Colleges’, celebrates the brilliant work that goes on in colleges, the brilliant staff who make it all possible and the brilliant students who make it all worthwhile.

Colleges and college staff transform lives – they help people make the most of their talents and ambitions and drive social mobility; they help businesses improve productivity and drive economic growth; they are rooted in and committed to their communities and drive tolerance and well-being. They are an essential part of England’s education system – educating and training 2.2 million people every year.

Over the last decade, colleges have had to deal with an average 30% funding cut, whilst costs have increased dramatically. This has resulted in a drastic drop in learning opportunities for adults, fewer hours of teaching and support for young people, and teacher pay at less than 80% of schools and support staff seeing no increase in pay for several years. This situation is not sustainable and ultimately impacts upon students, businesses, communities and the wider economy.

Ann Hardy, Principal of Scarborough TEC, explained why Colleges Week is so important: “Colleges Week at Scarborough TEC will be focusing on all the things that staff and students love about being at College, whether that’s the lifelong friendships that have been formed, the new skills that couldn’t be gained anywhere else or the fantastic facilities that we offer to train everyone to get the career they deserve.

“We will be kicking off the week by asking everyone to join us for a group photo, we are then delivering workshops around Personal Development, Behaviour & Wellbeing; some of which will be looking at knife crime, as it’s such a hot topic at the moment. We also have some fun things happening on social media; we really are going to show our community why so many people love Scarborough TEC.

Scarborough TEC has recently announced their pass rates for the 2017/18 Academic Year at 92.8%, an improvement of 4.1% on the previous year’s results. Ann continued:

“Our recent pass rates are a testament to the fantastic work that our staff are doing every day. Being at College is about so much more than sitting in a classroom, it’s all of the additional support and enrichment that helps to shape the lives of our young people.  Without the Government’s funding it wouldn’t be possible to do any of this and it’s important we secure a strong future for our Colleges and the sector as a whole.”