Stepping back in time to look at proud graduation days for Doncaster College students

Doncaster College of Education was opened as constituent college of Sheffield University Institute of Education in 1949.

The College of Education was relocated to Melton Park Hall in High Melton (six miles from Doncaster town centre) in 1952. This site served as the main campus for Doncaster’s local HE provision for 65 years until its relocation to the town centre in the summer of 2017.

As a result of relocation there was a 25 percent increase in the number of full-time students enrolling on University-level courses this year. Currently there are more than 1,200 students studying towards Bachelor’s Degrees, Foundation Degrees, HNDs, Master’s Degrees and a range of professional qualifications.

The University Centre works collaboratively with the University of Hull, Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Cumbria and (from later this year) the University of Lincoln. The University Centre has strong relationships with their University partners who award the degrees which the college offers.

As well as attracting 18 year-olds with A-levels and BTECs, the University Centre specialises in offering University-level courses to ‘non-traditional’ students who decide to do a degree later in life and who sometimes have few formal qualifications before they start.

Alan Girvin, director of Higher Education at the University Centre, said: “Every year hundreds of local Doncaster people graduate from the University Centre with a degree or an HND. Many of our students have children or relatives to care for, all of them have jobs, so the University Centre is the only place they can go to get a degree while managing family and work-commitments.”