Funding for equity and success in English further education colleges, 1998-2003

Funding text 1: Before incorporation, colleges were funded through a combination of local property taxes and block grants from the national government to local education authorities. These districts were responsible for hiring and firing, curriculum design, financial administration, and allocation of funds to individual colleges (McLure, 2000). Incorporation in 1993 moved control of policymaking from the local districts to the central government. The Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) was created to allocate funding and inspect colleges. The FEFC devised a per-pupil funding formula, first implemented in the 1993/94 academic year, in which funding followed individual students to whatever college they decided to attend, essentially creating a national voucher system.; Funding text 2: Additional learning support (ALS) is funding for support in addition to what is normally provided in a standard learning programme (Further Education Funding Council, 2000). ALS funding facilitates the employment of specialist staff including additional teachers to reduce class size (used especially in ABE), personal care assistants, mobility assistants, readers, note-takers, and educational psychologists (Further Education Funding Council, 2001).