The 157 Group is a group of 28 colleges of further education

Further education

Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is post-compulsory education , that is distinct from the education offered in universities...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The group was established in 2006 with an aim of promoting and maintaining high standards of education and management for this type of college. The group whose creation was announced at the 2006 Association of Colleges

Association of Colleges

The Association of Colleges sometimes shortened to the AoC is an organisation representing further education colleges in the UK, with an associated registered charitable trust. The Association was created in 1996 and provides a broad range of services to its subscribers, the subscribers being FE...

 (AoC) annual conference chaired by the then Secretary of State for Education, Alan Johnson

Alan Johnson

Alan Arthur Johnson is a British Labour Party politician who served as Home Secretary from June 2009 to May 2010. Before that, he filled a wide variety of cabinet positions in both the Blair and Brown governments, including Health Secretary and Education Secretary. Until 20 January 2011 he was...

, supports the reduction of costs by obtaining aid from intermediary organisations. The group takes its name from paragraph No.157 of a British government paper on education, The Foster

Andrew Foster (British public servant)

Sir Andrew Foster is British public servant who was knighted in 2001 for his services to the health and government services.-Career and appointments:...

 Report (formally the Review of the future role of FE colleges), published a year previously.

Criteria for membership of the group are having a sustainable Grade 2 rating accorded by Ofsted

Ofsted

The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is the non-ministerial government department of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England ....

, and an annual turnover of at least £35 million. Together, the group's member colleges employ more than 30,000 staff and the total enrolment is around 250,000 students. While the group develops projects and enterprises for its members, concerns have been expressed by the AoC that the group may have an agenda to privatise the colleges. Although the group has entered into partnerships in the private sector with an aim of establishing joint ventures, the notion of privatisation was refuted by Ioan Morgan, the chairman of the 157 Group.The Guardian 27 February 2007 Retrieved 29 July 2010 The group maintains the principle that costs can be reduced by dispensing with intermediaries. and states that sixth form colleges with 500 students are more effective and less costly to run than sixth forms with 100 students or less