Yet another university technical college will close later this year, taking the total to 10 for the troubled programme.
Wigan UTC, which is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted but has had a chequered history, has announced it will shut at the end of August 2019 after failing to recruit enough students to become financially viable.
The college, a 14-to-19 institution with a vocational focus, opened in 2013 and planned to recruit up to 500 students, but it currently only has 108 on roll.
A spokesperson said the numbers were “not sufficient for the UTC to operate without a crippling deficit which will severely hamper the equality of education it can provide”.
As revealed by our sister title FE Week in January, Wigan UTC received a government bailout totalling £169,000 last year. Its deficit stands at £516,000, according to the 2017/18 accounts for its academy sponsor, the Northern Schools Trust.
