Access and Participation Plans set out how higher education providers will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups to access, succeed in and progress from higher education.
You can see the full Access and Participation Plan for University Centre Colchester at https://www.colchester.ac.uk/ucc/ucc-policies-and-procedures/
Colchester Institute is a large general further education college based in North Essex which delivers higher education programmes under the approved brand of University Centre Colchester. Our curriculum is made up of employer-informed professional programmes with a large percentage of students on apprenticeship or part-time employer-sponsored programmes. In 2024/25 we had approximately 300 learners studying on our Higher Education courses.
For our Access and Participation Plan we undertook a thorough assessment of performance. We found that we had a diverse student community, with access onto our programmes in-line or above both local and national characteristics. However, we also discovered that students with certain characteristics had lower rates of continuation, attainment, and progression than either their peers or the national average. Our Access and Participation Plan has been designed to improve on-course outcomes for these student groups.
At University Centre Colchester the maximum fees charged are:
Fees will be subject to an annual inflationary increase which will be linked to the RPI-X inflation rate. You can see a full list of fees for courses at University Centre Colchester at https://www.colchester.ac.uk/ucc/higher-education-finance/
We offer the following financial support to students. These funds help students access higher education and continue studying until their course is completed.
We publish information regarding fees for the preceding year on both our own and the UCAS websites. We signpost prospective students to this information through in-person events such as UCAS fairs and open events and through email communications during the application process.
Current students receive information about fees and financial support available through our UCC Academic Services Moodle site, internal communication campaigns and emails. More information on how we provide financial information to current or prospective students can be found on page 25 of our Access and Participation Plan.
Based on our assessment of performance we have identified the following objectives on which to focus our work:
To meet these objectives, we have set the following targets:
We are undertaking the following initiatives to achieve our aims and targets:
We consulted with a cross-section of current and former students to help design our plan. Our current students will be central to the monitoring of our initiatives with our Student Council (which is composed of student representatives from all courses) receiving annual reports and updates. The Student Council is also represented in our internal quality assurance meetings, including Academic Board, which has responsibility for overseeing implementation of the plan.
A list of Student Council members can be found on the UCC Academic Services Moodle site. To become more involved in this work, and to discuss becoming a Student Council member, current students can contact UCC Academic Services at uccacademicservices@colchester.ac.uk More information regarding student consultation can be found on page 24 of our Access and Participation Plan.
Monitoring and evaluation of the intervention strategies listed in our Access and Participation Plan will be undertaken centrally by our UCC Academic Services department. All evaluation will be shared with internal stakeholders through the UCC Academic Board, UCC Student Council and Governing Body.
Insights gained from evaluation processes will be presented to fellow UK based partners of our main validating body, the University of East Anglia. More information regarding our approach to evaluation can be found on page 24 of our Access and Participation Plan.
If you would like further information on this Access and Participation Plan, please contact UCC Academic Services at uccacademicservices@colchester.ac.uk for further information.