This kind of college doesn’t get much attention in the news, but it does something very important: it gives people a real second chance. That kind of place is North Hertfordshire College, which people in the area call NHC. It takes place in a part of Hertfordshire that most people drive through without stopping. It has campuses in Stevenage, Hitchin, and Letchworth Garden City. Still, it’s been the place where things really clicked for tens of thousands of students over the past 30 years.
Because of changes in how further education was run in Hertfordshire, NHC was created on April 1, 1991. Three schools were merged into one: Stevenage College, Hitchin College, and Letchworth Technical College. It’s the kind of administrative origin story that’s not very interesting to read. But what came out of that merger is important to keep an eye on.
Its biggest building, the Stevenage Center, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003. In hindsight, that visit seems to have been a quiet sign that this wasn’t just another suburban college put together to meet policy requirements. There are a lot of different classes on campus, from A-level equivalents and higher education programs to childcare and health sciences. Someone who lost their job and is now retraining might sit next to someone who just graduated from high school and is trying to figure out what to do next.
For those who want to know more about who NHC serves, check out the Engineering and Construction Campus. Trades like plumbing, bricklaying, electrical work, painting, and decorating are ones that the country really needs people to learn, but for years they’ve been seen as less important than a college degree. In 2011, a new welding training center was added to the campus. At the time, Skills Minister Matthew Hancock opened it. It was a simple and useful addition. The building has been quietly making qualified tradespeople since then, whether the political symbolism worked or not.
The Airbus Foundation Discovery Space, which opened in January 2017, is another one. The Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, Airbus, and NHC worked together to build a STEM education center. The center was opened by astronaut Tim Peake and received major funding from the industry. There’s something really striking about that part. A college in Stevenage that is not part of the Russell Group hosted an astronaut from the space program at the launch of a science center that it helped build with an aerospace giant. That moment might have told us more about NHC’s future than any Ofsted report ever could.
Also, Ofsted said that the college was “Good with Outstanding features” after inspecting it in November 2017. Outstanding ratings were given to the programs for people with special needs and traineeships. Not by chance does that kind of thing happen. But it also says something about how the institution is run every day, not just how it looks.
NHC is a good choice for students because of many things, not just one program or award. It’s the way the place feels. At the Retreat salon at the Hitchin Centre, students get real haircuts and beauty treatments from students who are learning under trained professionals. The Meadows is a restaurant run by students all year long. They come up with menus, prepare meals, and serve customers. These aren’t practice drills. These are the kinds of messy, real-life events that people tend to remember.
If you look at NHC from the outside, you might get the impression that it has been doing the dull job of education for thirty years without really wanting anyone to notice. There are smaller class sizes than at most universities, courses that are designed with employers in mind, and free gym access for students who are enrolled. None of this is exciting. But if you’re trying to decide if going to college for a degree is worth it, this seems like a pretty clear answer.
