Performance

Scottish Funding Council Performance Indicators 2021-22

UHI Argyll is one of thirteen academic partners of the University of the Highlands and Islands and is the main provider of further and higher education in Argyll and Bute.  

During the 2021-22 academic year teaching remained mainly online, with courses containing a practical component being prioritised for access to college campuses. Delivery of Schools link activity resumed in local schools, following all covid guidelines. 

Students studying from home were regularly contacted by our local centre staff to provide support and guidance with any issues students had and to generally check they were OK and had everything they needed to study from home.  Laptops and other digital devices were issued to students to facilitate continued engagement with their studies. 

Despite staff and students remaining at home for the majority of the academic year, student satisfaction in the college remained high. In the end of year student satisfaction and engagement survey, 98.6% of full time FE students said that overall they were satisfied with their experience at UHI Argyll. 

Key Points from SFC FE performance indicator data:

• 74% of our FE students completed their full-time programme of study with 61% of students achieving their programme award, a higher percentage achievement than the overall Scottish sector.  
• Despite the challenges faced due to the covid pandemic, student withdrawals were 3% less than the previous year.
• 61% of students studying more than 160 hours were female.
• 87% of all full-time permanent teaching staff hold a teaching qualification, an increase of 25% from the previous year, highlighting the importance UHI Argyll places on staff training and development.

The full FE Performance Indicators are shown below and can be viewed in this file Argyll KPI 21-22 :

The Performance Indicators (PIs) are based on student records submitted via the Further Education Statistics (FES) system, an automated data capture and record system, which encompasses built-in quality checks to ensure the data is correct and credible. The Scottish Funding Council PIs for UHI Argyll represent only further education statistics.

Where the number of enrolments is less than 50 in a category, data has been suppressed and is not shown. SFC state that this avoids spurious statistical accuracy in the published pass rates and reduces the risk of incorrect conclusions being drawn from pass rates based on small numbers.  When viewing the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) performance indicator paper for UHI Argyll it is helpful to consider that we are a rural college serving the fragmented and widely dispersed populations of Argyll and the Islands. Therefore, the numbers of students enrolling on courses are relatively small and a majority of the subject groupings appear blank in Chart E: FE Outcomes by ES subject group on courses lasting 160 hours or more.

In 2021-22, students also enrolled in courses of more than 160 hours of learning in the following subject groupings:

• Business, Management, and Administration
• Childcare
• Computing and ICT
• Construction
• Hospitality and Tourism
• Land-based Industries including Horticulture and Agriculture
• Nautical Studies
• Social subjects