Association of Colleges

The Enterprise Education in FE Initiative
 

The Enterprise Education in FE Initiative aimed to demonstrate how colleges might help meet the enterprise needs of the economy, specifically:

• business start-up
• innovation
• social enterprise
• corporate enterprise activities

Scope

The Enterprise Education in FE Initiative operated from September 2006 to March 2008. It was funded by the Northern Way (the alliance of the three northern RDAs). The funding for this pan-regional project was £712,000.

Led by Association of Colleges, the initiative was designed to introduce and pilot enterprise through professional development for lecturers and college managers, facilitating the teaching and learning processes and the creation of management systems to sustain and embed good practice.

Key features

• 32 colleges across three northern regions took part in the pilot, 10 in the north-east, 10 in Yorkshire and the Humber and 12 in the north-west
• Each participating college received a seed corn grant of £9,000
• The 32 colleges in the pilot cohort yielded 96 enterprise champions
• Enterprise activities were introduced into 29 different vocational areas
• A total of 74 curriculum pilots took place
• More than 16,000 students were involved in enterprise activities directly resulting from the project

The outcomes and findings of the initiative are outlined in the following downloadable documents:

  Enterprise in FE Briefing March08

  Taking Enterprise Education Further

  Enterprise in FE Policy Guide

  Enterprise College Toolkit

  Enterprise in FE Directory of Curriculm Pilots