Croydon College
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| Established | 1895 |
|---|---|
| Type | Further Education and Higher Education |
| Principal | Frances Wadsworth |
| Location |
College Road Croydon CR9 1DX England Coordinates: 51°22′23″N 0°05′42″W / 51.373°N 0.095°W |
| Local authority | London Borough of Croydon |
| DfE URN | 130432 Tables |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | 8,000 students |
| Gender | Mixed |
| Ages | 14+ |
| Website | www |
Croydon College is an educational institution with 8,000 students, made up of a Further Education College, The Croydon School of Art and a University Centre. It is located in Croydon, within the London Borough of Croydon. Its origins can be traced to a School of Art that was established in 1868, which subsequently merged with Croydon Polytechnic to create the college shortly after the Second World War. The college is the only further education college to have been awarded the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS) and is currently graded 'good' by Ofsted (2014).
The history of the College is directly linked to that of two institutions, the Croydon College of Art and the Croydon Polytechnic.
Croydon Corporation (the governing body of the County Borough of Croydon) founded the Pitlake Technical Institute in 1888, which would later become Croydon Polytechnic, which had an initial intake of 162 students. Twenty years earlier in 1868, the School of Art had been founded above the Public Halls in George Street. In 1929, the Board of Education first highlighted the need for a new technical college to replace Croydon Polytechnic.
In 1932, the School of Art was taken over by the Council to become Croydon College of Art. In 1941, the Polytechnic school was gutted by fire. It was not until 1948 before the plans for a new college could be revived when the Corporation drew up a Development Plan for Further Education. By then student enrolment had risen to over 4,000. The plan was to create a technical college, which would merge the Polytechnic and College of Art. Three years later, Croydon Corporation formally approved plans for a new college and in 1953 construction started at the college's current Fairfield site on the first of four stages.
In June 1968, there was a six-day student protest that included Robin Scott, Malcolm McLaren, and Jamie Reid (all students at the time).
Recent Principals have included Peter Phillips (until 1994), Vic Seddon (1995–2001) and Mariane Cavalli (2001 to 2010). It was Vic Seddon who created the Croydon Higher Education Centre, developed by Mariane Cavalli, which is the focus for university degree and research activity in the town of Croydon. A proposal to create the formalised Croydon University College in the Millennium year 1999-2000 was rejected by both the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Croydon Borough Council, however In November 2011, the college was given approval to use the title University Centre Croydon (UCC). Current principal and CEO Frances Wadsworth, has been in post since 2010.
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