DOCUMENT RESUME ED 357 183 CE 063 562 AUTHOR Theodossin, Ernest TITLE Invisible Assets. FE in the Educational Market-Place. INSTITUTION Staff Coll., Bristol (England). REPORT NO ISBN-0-907659-76-4 PUB DATE 92 NOTE 151p. AVAILABLE FROM Staff College, Coombe Lodge, Blagdon, Bristol BS18 6RG, England, United Kingdom (11.50 British pounds). PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS College School Cooperation; Continuing Education; Educational Research: Foreign Countries; *Institutional Advancement; *Marketing; Organizational Communication; *Postsecondary Education; Publicity; Public Opinion; *Public Relations; Public Support; School Community Relationship; *Technical Institutes IDENTIFIERS Great Britain ABSTRACT A feasibility study to gauge support for a Further Education (FE) Marketing Unit provided information on FE's image. Many persons occupying positions of authority in FE colleges in Britain see FE as possessing a negative image. Another group stresses the lack of any image whatsoever. Despite the difficulties colleges experience in recruiting from schools with which they rc...1y be in direct competition, studies do not suggest that FE colleges face major marketing problems in schools. Respondents in a study regarding college- employer relations were almoct equally divided between those who believed relations had improved and those who did not. Government preoccupation with FE as revealed in activity, debate, and publications is only one potential index of public interest. The national press and other media devote little time to FE. Two areas in which colleges create their own images for the public are prospectuses and local newspapers. The overall impression of FE that emerges is downbeat and rather dowdy. A seven-point action program for FE to promote itself involves the following: self-help on the part of colleges; developing a model for an FE promotional body; learning to target market segments; raising FE's profile, developing a high quality services; lobbying decision makers; and adopting a positive approach. (Appendixes include lists of organizations involved and materials used in the study, list of acronyms, and 58 references.) (YLB) *******************************************************************k*** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** AL_ t dt N D u DEPARTMENT OP EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS 11 .4 Once or Eoucatronat Ressart and Irmoroverner MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY t' '-'f: EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INCOMAATION I CENTER (ERIC) --...., i ft 1 010,74, aocumnt Asa boon rrporochicoi as ',..7 techrg from the potion Or oroloastoon oroamstmg , 77 ( C L 0 1 0 tAnor cog Ages nave Min made fo ortolOvf --\--- r0r0OuthOr4 aullildv . 1 :LA,' sot vzorneocroomeysiratora,n Lire Ootstr, TO THE EDUCATIONAL 'r INFORMATION CENTEF I 0E1;1 001111.0n or porky Invisible assets FE in the educational market-place by Ernest Theodossin r-1 ISBN: 0-907659-76-4 © The Staff College 1992 All rights are reserved. 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Published by The Staff College Coombe Lodge Blagdon Bristol BS18 6RG Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT'S 4 LIST OF TABLES 5 CHAPTER 1: Cinderella and the invisible man 7 CHAPTER 2: FE and the general public 17 CHAPTER 3: The major FE markets 29 CHAPTER 4: FE, government and the national media 43 CHAPTER 5: The FE sub-culture 57 CHAPTER 6: College prospectuses 67 CHAPTER 7: Local newspaper college advertising and promotion 77 CHAPTER 8: Small spenders in a big world 85 CHAPTER 9: What image does FE want to project? 95 CHAPTER 10: Improving FE's image 109 CHAPTER 11: How can FE promote itself? 121 APPENDIX A: The feasibility study national survey 141 APPENDIX B: College prospectuses 145 APPENDIX C: Colleges and local newspapers 147 APPENDIX D: Acronyms 151 APPENDIX E: References 155 Acknowledgements fhe quantitative analysis of these materials has been carried out in the summer of 1990 by three stalwart assistantsAlan Finlayson, Monica Gomez and Anita Vettier - for whose help I am grateful, although I alone am responsible for the qualitative analysis. I would also like to record my thanks to Margaret King and colleagues at The Staff College library for continuing good-natured assistance with difficult requests. 4 List of tables Table 1 Number of UK home pupils and students by education sectorin 1987-88 Table 2 Number of UK home students aged 16+ by education sectorin 1987-88 Table 3 Percentage of the UK young adult home population participatingin education, 1987-88 Table 4 FE students from home and abroad by type of courseand mode of study, 1987-88 Table 5 Analysis by square centimetres of educational advertisingand news/features in the weekly 5lucation sections of threequality newspapers during the weeks of 14, 21, 28 Mayand 4 June 1990 Table 6 Analysis by square centimetres of educational advertisingand news/features in the Times Educational Supplement, 11, 18 ,25 May and 1 June 1990 Table 7 Analysis of content of subject matter of main articles in a varietyof journals Chapter 1: Cinderella and the invisible man The somewhat oblique genesis of this study was a talk by the then Secretary of State for Education and Science, Kenneth Baker, to the Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education (ACFHE) in February 1989. Getting a high- profile senior minister to address staff in the further education (FE) service counts as a special event, and Mr Baker used the occasion to put across a dramatic, if unexpected, message. He suggested to a gathering of senior college managers that FE is referred to by some as 'the Cinderella of the education service', adding for good measure that FE has `a dowdy image' and 'what is undeniably a low profile' (Baker, 1989). None of this could have startled those who work in and know FE, but by stating it publicly Mr Baker put the FE 'image problem' on the visible education agenda. The minister then called for `an initiative to promote further education', challenging FE to set itself the goal of attracting 'more people into your colleges by selling yourselves even better'. The Baker 'Cinderella' speech was delivered more than two years ago and is (almost ancient) education history. Its author is no longer at the Department of Education and Science (DES). Two Cabinet reshuffles in quick succession have yielded two other education ministers, and the present incumbent, Kenneth Clarke, has produced an FE White Paper (DES, 1991) that is in some respects even more exceptional than the Baker speech: FE is seldom enough the focus of ministerial reflection, but even less often the object of government action. It would be agreeable to think that the White Paper was FE's long-owed national recognition, a coming of age, Cinderella moving into the palace. Not quite. The impulse behind the Paper owes as much to political expediency as to educational vision: the need to tackle an unpopular Community Charge. As a Times Educational Supplement article (Jackson,1991a) suggests, the initial March 1991 decision to take colleges out of LEA control '7 ...showed every sign of being hurried out for political reasons further education accounts for more than £2 billion oflocal government's spending...[The announcement] left huge gaps to be filled in by a White Paper promised in a couple of months' time. It has since become apparent that the May 1991 White Paper was asrushed as the actual decision. The Paper's 107 pages are generously spread among twovolumes, printed with nearly three-inch margins, and include 14 blanksides and 29 whole pages given over to chapter titles (at 18 per centof the total surely a record), with the same three photographs (of specimen students) printed21 times. The Paper's recommendations aim to revolutionise the organisation andfunding of FE by bringing incorporation to the colleges and removing them fromlocal education authority (LEA) control, but much remains to be worked out:funding arrangements; the role of Training and Enterprise Councils (Th Cs); theplace of adult education and the careers service; training credits (endorsedbefore the pilot studies have been completed); etc. There are exhortations on the need to eradicate theacademic-vocational class divide, but few hints about how the necessary cultural revolutionis to be achieved. More general National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are tobe produced, and they are being worked on while I write. A system ofAdvanced and Ordinary Diplomas is promised 'at the earliest practicable date'. On the positive side, the Paper has brought FE out of thewings and on to the education stage, even if not yet downstage centre. Nor arealtered funding arrangements and a new legal status in a public sectorproviding agency likely in themselves to metamorphose popular images and public stereotypes.The Baker epithet persists: Cinderella still awaits rescue. Whateverelse it may or may not be, the White Paper is not in itself an `initiative to promote furthereducation'. For that, much more is required, and, as I shall argue, it needs to come notfrom politicians from those who work in FE. To the outsider, education may appear static, butunderneath change is stirring, even if more perceptibly in some placesthan in others. If there is not yet an FE initiative, grand and all-embracing, there are at least severalmodest efforts in progress (identified in later pages) andperhaps the most important legacies of Mr Baker's talka growing acceptance that FE has animage problem, and an emerging recognition that only FE can change its image andresolve the problem. 8 Big numbers and low visibility In one of GK Chesterton's (1954) Father Brown stories, the murder mystery which has defeated less astute minds is at last solved by the cunning cleric: an invisible man must have committed the crime, someone ...dressed rather handsomely in red, blue and gold...and [who] in this striking, and even showy, costume..