The ongoing COVID pandemic and the requirement for public health control measures continued into 2021-22. The measures put in place to protect staff and students in 2021- 22 and the emergence of the Omicron variant were more disruptive and impacted on the learning, teaching and student support services. Therefore, full consideration should be given to these exceptional circumstances and direct comparisons of the last three academic years should not be made without due consideration of the context.

However, despite the repeated interruptions to normal delivery, South Lanarkshire College once again provided students with a high-quality learning experience, which is supported by the Education Scotland Annual Engagement Visit report and can be viewed here. The College has continued to provide similar learning opportunities for students and continues to exceed Scottish Government targets.

Attainment rates for FE FT, HE FT and HE PT are all above the national rates in Scotland, and withdrawal rates for FE FT, HE FT and HE PT are also significantly under national rates, with the majority of students completing their courses and gaining a recognised qualification.

South Lanarkshire College offers provision to students of all ages with the following ages in particular completing their courses successfully.

• 1,150 students on courses lasting 160 hours or more aged under 18 completed successfully at 69.9%, which is 6% above national rates.
• 413 students on courses lasting 160 hours or more aged between 21-24 completed successfully at 73%, which is 5.5% above national rates.
• 886 students on courses lasting 160 hours or more aged between 25-40 completed successfully at 73%, 2.1% above national rates.

More students across the following courses and subject areas have completed successfully in comparison to national rates.

• 169 FE PT learners completed successfully on courses of 40 up to 80 hours, 82%, a slight increase of 1%.
• 476 students undertaking Care related courses completed successfully at 72.5%, which is considerably above national rates by 12.5%.
• 179 students undertaking Business Management and Administration related courses completed successfully at 69.8%, which is significantly above national rates by 12%.
• 104 students undertaking Hospitality and Tourism related courses completed successfully at 68.9%, which is considerably above national rates by 11.9%.
• 401 students undertaking Hairdressing, Beauty and Complementary Therapies courses completed successfully at 60.1%, which is 2% above national rates.                                     

On FE courses lasting more than 160 hours male and female learners achieve broadly in line with each other, which is circa 70% of the overall College provision. On HE courses lasting more than 160 hours females achieve more than their male counterparts by 7.8%. However, male and female students on these FE and HE courses achieved above national rates.

The extensive additional support provided by teams for groups of students facing the greatest barriers to learning, has had a positive impact with:

• Students from SIMD10 (352) areas achieving at 68.6% which is an increase of 3.9% in comparison to last year and 8.6% above national rates.
• Students from SIMD20 (651) achieving 6.4% above national rates at 66.4%.
• 377 students who declared that they had a disability completed successfully at 64.2%, which is 2.6% above national rates.

Furthermore, there were 194 students from ethnic minority backgrounds who completed successfully at 73.2% which is a significant 11.6% above national rates.

98.8% of academic staff at the College hold a teaching qualification with others working towards completion of the Teaching Qualification in Further Education (TQFE).

South Lanarkshire College is proud to serve the needs of the local community and continues to demonstrate that its student-centred approach enables students to receive high quality learning and teaching enabling students to progress into their chosen destinations.

View the Performance Indicator data here

Find out about College performance visit: Scottish Funding Council