History of UCB
The origins of our College can be traced back to the late nineteenth century with the foundation of a Municipal Technical School offering cookery and household science courses. The School operated from a number of sites around the City and the archives record the establishment of a cookery room in 1916 and domestic cookery classes in 1918. In 1927 the name of the School was changed to the Central Technical College. By the 1950s the College had been renamed the College of Technology and a department of Bakery and Domestic Science had been established. In 1956 Birmingham's Chief Education Officer, E L Russell, recommended to the Local Education Authority the setting up of a separate college dealing with catering, bakery and domestic science. The new College of Bakery, Catering, Domestic Science and Associated Studies opened to students in 1957. The following year, the name was changed yet again to the Birmingham College of Food and Domestic Arts. The College continued to operate on many sites across the City until 1968 when HRH The Duke of Edinburgh opened our main site in Summer Row. Another name change, in the late 1980s, to the Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies, was designed to recognise the diversification of the College's programmes.
On 1st April 1993, as a result of the Further and Higher Education Act (1992), the College was removed from the control of Birmingham City Council and became part of the newly formed Further Education Sector. This new found independence brought many opportunities including additional funding, the ability to increase student numbers and to offer new programmes. Independence also brought new responsibilities such as increased public and legal accountability and the need to manage physical, human and financial resources effectively. The College rose to these challenges to become the most successful institution in the Sector.
In August 2002, following an application to the Secretary of State, College transferred to the Higher Education Sector, retaining its specialist higher and further education mission.
The results achieved by our students are amongst the very best in the country. Inspections of our work by both the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and Ofsted have confirmed the very high quality of teaching and learning we deliver. In the case of Ofsted, we achieved the best profile of grades – all Grade 1 Outstanding – of any provider of general further education ever recorded.
We became a Beacon college in January 2006. Beacon status is conferred by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) for excellence and innovation within the Learning and Skills Sector and recognises learning providers that deliver outstanding teaching and learning and that are well led and managed. We were the first higher education institution to receive this prestigious award.
We are unique in the HE Sector in that the mix of our provision is approximately 60% higher education and 40% further education. We offer programmes ranging from postgraduate and undergraduate programmes through to National Vocational Qualifications and National Diplomas. This mix of provision enables students, sometimes with few if any formal qualifications, to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence to a point where they are able to progress to fulfil their educational potential on higher education programmes within the College. Our student profile provides ample evidence of our commitment to widening participation and compares very favourably to the Sector as a whole. We are accredited by The University of Birmingham which means that students on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes graduate with degrees from one of the world's leading universities.
In 2006, we submitted an application to the QAA to be granted our own taught degree awarding powers in the firm belief that we had attained the level of organisational maturity and had the robust systems in place to lead to a successful outcome from the taught degree awarding powers audit process. Following a year long audit, the Privy Council approved the award of taught degree awarding powers in November 2007. The powers enabled us to change our name and to include University College in our title. Following an extensive consultation process during December 2007, the Privy Council approved our name change to University College Birmingham, publicly signalling our status as a higher education institution.
The granting of taught degree awarding powers has not affected our relationship with The University of Birmingham. That relationship has developed over a period of nearly twenty years and is built on mutual respect and support. It is a relationship that we value highly and one which will remain as a cornerstone of our ongoing development. Taught degree awarding powers will, however, enable us to award degrees in a limited number of areas outside of the University's current areas of expertise.
Demand for our programmes remains very strong and the recruitment of international students, in particular, has bucked national trends with record increases year-on-year between 2003/04 and 2007/08.
The College has long enjoyed very close links with the industries it serves; a point highlighted in the commendation for our Queen's Anniversary Award for Higher and Further Education in 1998. Links with industry take many forms ranging from bespoke training to product development. Industry has also been very generous in its support of the College, sponsoring facilities and donating state-of-the-art equipment. In August of last year we launched our Centre for Business Advantage to support further expansion of our work with industry.