ONE of the driving forces in education in Basingstoke has announced that she is to step down from her top job.

Judith Armstrong, who is principal of Basingstoke College of Technology (BCOT), will retire from the key post next year.

During her tenure, BCOT, which offers courses for adults and 16 to 19-year-olds, has gone from strength-to-strength and is now looking to move into a new purpose-built home in about 2012.

Ms Armstrong, 62, said: “I felt, from the college’s point of view, that it would be good if the new principal can be involved from an early stage with the design and development of the campus and the facilities and how the curriculum will look four or five years from now.”

Her departure next summer will end a 20-year association with BCOT, which saw her arrive from Tottenham College as a departmental head and rise, via head of faculty and deputy vice-principal corporate services, to the role of principal.

BCOT is one of the town’s major employers, with 650 staff. During Ms Armstrong’s tenure, the number of full-time students has risen by a third to 2,200, although the number of part-time students has dropped from 10,000 to 6,000 because of changes in the types of courses offered.

When Ms Armstrong became principal, she wanted to raise BCOT’s profile, improve the general learning experience and student success rate, and develop the facilities – and she feels she and her team have made the grade.

“It’s going to be a busy last year for me, with the four-yearly Ofsted inspection due,” she said. “I’m confident we will do well.

“One of the things we have done is improve the quality of the learning experience over the last few years. We have got this passion for education and not everyone is aware of the opportunities for vocational education.”

She said BCOT now had industry-standard facilities and its broad range of study programmes cater for the less able and high-flyers alike.

Plans are in the pipeline to relocate the college to Eli Lilly’s former manufacturing site in Kingsclere Road, Houndmills. Ms Armstrong believes that laying the groundwork for that scheme would crown her BCOT career.

Ms Armstrong said plans to create a learning campus, offering post-graduate courses, beside BCOT’s new campus are exciting.

“That will be a real motivator in raising the aspirations of young people – to rub shoulders with people coming from industry, the post-graduates and staff – I’d really like to see that,” she said.

She added that she would envy her successor – whoever that turns out to be – as he or she will see through the almost £100million project to create BCOT’s new home.

“The principal’s role is a great job,” she said: “It might be all-consuming, but it’s got everything really – a lot of people contact, because colleges are people places. It’s got real opportunities to make a difference, which not every job has and it’s an exciting era that BCOT is moving into.”

Ms Armstrong is used to making definitive changes in direction, having moved from industry into teaching in 1981 – and she is preparing for another one.

She said: “If I’m going to stop and do something else, it’s going to be something that’s different. I’m definitely going on a special holiday in September or October next year – a time when I have never been able to go on holiday for the last 28 years.”

And while Ms Armstrong, who has previously visited such diverse locations as Peru, Uganda and Antarctica, intends to stay in Basingstoke – “it’s a great town”, she said – she also plans to indulge her passion for travel and birdwatching.

She intends volunteering, has been learning Spanish with a view to another South American adventure, and also intends visiting her niece in New Zealand.

One thing is certain – Ms Armstrong will look back happily upon her time at BCOT.

She said: “I’m very proud of what we have achieved, but it’s tinged with sadness. You always feel ‘could I have achieved that little bit more? Could I have got there quicker?’ “But it is a huge organisation and I think progress over the last five or six years has been significant. I’m not saying it wasn’t there before, but we have stepped up the forward movement.”