Selly Oak Colleges - The Final Years of The Federation

The Final Years of The Federation

By the 1980s there were pressures on all the colleges. The missionary colleges were small and expensive to run, and questions were raised about whether the training of mission for countries overseas was better undertaken in those countries rather than the UK. Westhill College, the largest college by far in the federation, was small when compared with other teachers training colleges. To get over this, it worked jointly with Newman College, a Roman Catholic teachers training college on a separate campus about two miles away. But full joint working was not acceptable to the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the collaboration ended after 1992. Westhill’s educational philosophy of child-centred education was out of favour with the government. It governors responded by trying to re-create the college as a liberal arts university and raising money to finance the Orchard Learning Centre – before suddenly agreeing to be taken over by the University of Birmingham in 2001, after which its training of teachers, social workers, youth and community workers transferred to different parts of the University of Birmingham. Kingsmead College closed in 1993, its work and some of its staff joining the College of the Ascension. The Multi-faith Centre also closed in 1993, the Jewish Christian Centre the following year, the Centre for Black and White Christian Partnership in 1999, and St Andrew's Hall closed in 2000. CMS removed its reduced training programme to Oxford in 2005 and closed Crowther Hall. The United College of the Ascension closed in 2006. Some of its work is carried on by a reduced staff in the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies, located in The Queen's College, an ecumenical theological foundation close to the Birmingham University campus in Edgbaston. That left the two colleges which continue today, Woodbrooke and Fircroft.