Institutional diversity in the contemporary further education sector in England

The thesis is a study of the nature and extent of institutional diversity in the further education sector in England. Unlike for institutions in the higher education sector, the pattern of further education colleges has been less systematically investigated and the standard classification of colleges adopted by the central authorities has remained largely the same since the 1990s. Analysis of administrative data on course and student characteristics for the academic year 2011/2012, the dimensions and patterns of institutional diversity are reported using descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. The findings demonstrate a greater level of diversity among and between colleges than is captured by the standard classification. This is substantially so within the category of general further education colleges which accounts for the majority of colleges, courses and students in the sector. Even within the specific categories of sixth form colleges and specialist colleges there are notable variations in their course profiles and student populations. Based on these findings, an argument is made for a review and overhaul of official categorisations in order both to better inform policymaking in England and to underpin current and future research on tertiary education.