Merged Peterborough colleges aim to become education powerhouse

In a move which was announced yesterday (August 3), Peterborough Regional College and New College Stamford are to merge to form part of the new group, along with University Centre Peterborough, in order to improve student experience in the city.

Despite the ecomomic challenges posed by Covid-19, the principals have insisited that finances were not a motivating factor in the move but instead a desire to deliver a better quality education experience across the board.

The merger will see the names of the institutions amended slightly, with New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College becoming Stamford and Peterborough College.

IEG CEO and Stamford College Princial Janet Meenaghan said: “The merger will allow us to share resources better, improve our financial resilience further and positon ourselves better for growth.

“Both colleges are in quite an unusual position in that we are both financially sound. Most mergers in further education are driven by the fact that atleast one of the partners are on a poor financial footing.

“Ours is not about that, instead it is driven by realisng opportunites.

“We do not want to waste money and energy competing when we could be maximising growth opportunites together.”

IEG Deputy CEO and Peterborough College Principal Rachel Nicholls added: “Very little will change on a day-to-day basis. We still want to offer our breadth of curriculum on both campuses and give students a choice. Hopefully, they will see an even better experience as a result of the merger.

“Obviously in these times, we are looking at how we can respond to the challenges of Covid. We would like to tackle unemployment with re-training opportunities and are looking to increase our apprenticeship provisions. We would also like to improve our higher education provision, particularly through UCP.

“We will have over 800 higher education students as part of the Inspire group and for us that’s really a key part of the group we want to grow.”

Rachel, who moved into the role from New College Stamford in December 2018, believes the merger is just the latest in a long line to improvments to be brought to the college in the last 18 months. She said: “The college has been on a huge journey and is unrecoginsable from when I first started. We put the focus massively back on the students and the experience in the classroom and have created an atmosphere where our staff feel supported to take risks and try new things.”

She added: “We are very ambitious for the future.

“Our focus is on giving the students real high quality learning experinces to enable them to develop the skills both from a qualification point of view and also from an interpersonal one. Our students are more than people just here to do qualifications.

“We want them to come here and develop as individauls so they can move on to their next step.”

Janet concluded: “We’re about changing lives here. The market conditions are perforct for that, the number of young people is growing. We think we’ve got a place in the marker and can do incredibly well together.”

“Our motto is Peterborugh and Stamford thriving together. That’s what we want to do.”