The Scottish Executive's lifelong learning strategy, articulated in "Life Through Learning, Learning Through Life" (2003) emphasises effective learning as the key to bridging the opportunities, skills, and productivity gaps that characterise Scotland's current social and economic environment. This report has been commissioned by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) to encourage colleges to reflect on what they provide to their learners, paying attention in particular to the nature of student learning and how the learning environment can be enhanced. In preparing this report, HMIE have undertaken a literature review covering the work listed in Appendix 1, analysed subject review findings for the current cycle, including in-depth analysis of the findings in 11 colleges, visited a further five colleges to explore learners' views, and drawn on a SFEFC-funded collaborative project in which four colleges focused on learning and achievement. The report: (1) considers the two quality elements "Teaching and Learning Process and Student Achievement" within the SFEFC/HMIE quality framework by way of background and context; (2) identifies some important messages for further education (FE) colleges contained in recent literature and research on student learning; (3) evaluates the current state of learning in FE colleges by reference to HMIE findings in the current review cycle (2000-01 to 2003-04), staff and student views, sector initiatives, and developments in technology-supported learning; (4) picks up some important messages from a recent FE sector initiative; and (5) makes an initial contribution to the proposed development of an improved framework for evaluating teaching and learning that would place greater emphasis on learning and focus more on the learner than its predecessor. Two appendices present: (1) Bibliography; and (2) Glossary of terms and abbreviations.