Almost two million further education students are now taking courses funded by England’s Learning and Skills Council.

The council’s latest statistics suggest that student rolls rose last year, halting four years of decline. However, the increase was small - just 2 per cent - and the fall in numbers on higher-level courses and among full-time students has continued.

When all types of courses, including self-funded evening classes, are taken into account it appears that overall student numbers decreased by 0.4 per cent last year.

Although most FE students are on level 2 and 3 courses - the equivalent of GCSE and A-level respectively - the sub-GCSE level 1 courses have seen the sharpest increase in enrolment (85 per cent) since 1994. By contrast, the number of FE students taking GCE AAS-level courses fell during the same period by nearly 16 per cent, from 248,000 to just over 200,000.

The numbers studying for GCSEs plummeted from 119,000 to 60,000 during the same period.

The fall in A-level student rolls comes despite a marked increase in the number of students at sixth-form colleges, from just over 120,000 to more than 160,000.

Level 3 access-to-higher-education courses are proving popular. Last year there were more than 33,000 students on such courses, two-thirds more than in 1994. But higher-level courses for qualifications at levels 4 and 5 have seen the sharpest decline.

As universities have created more places, so numbers in FE colleges have dropped from more than 100,000 in 1994 to under 50,000 in 2001.

The future of the FE sector is now dependent on government policy for the whole of the 14-19 age group.

How colleges will work with schools now that post-16 courses for both sectors are funded from the same source, only time will tell.

John Howson is the managing director of Education Data Surveys and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University. Email: john.howson@lineone.net