The State of Scotland's Colleges: introducing our new series

Now, we’re investigating a sector that is absolutely crucial to Scotland’s present and future prosperity, but which rarely if ever receives the attention it deserves.

It’s time to ask questions about the state of Scotland’s colleges.

How do they work? Who do they serve? Why do they matter?

And how do we help them to help as many people as possible?

Scotland’s further education sector has faced serious challenges for most of the past decade. The numbers don’t lie, so we’ll explore the data showing the state of college funding, student numbers and course availability, and ask what the enormous and widening funding gap relative to inflation means for these critical institutions.

Read more: Glasgow School of Art Fires: Find all articles in the series here

But although the core problems are long-standing, it’s also fair to say they have now come to a head – and nobody seems to be able to find a viable solution.

A decade of industrial disputes has thus culminated in a near-two-year face off: on one side are workers seeking real terms pay rises to address a crippling cost of living crisis; on the other are college employers whose cash funding is being cut; and in the background are two governments whose decisions and priorities have put the further education sector under unbearable pressure.

The word ‘crisis’ is entirely accurate.

How did we get here, and what would it take to resolve the deadlock?

We’ll speak to the key players to find out if an answer to those questions even exists.

When people think of colleges they typically – and not entirely unreasonably – think of students from comparatively deprived parts of urban and suburban areas, but what happens across the Highlands and Islands?

How do students from rural and so-called ‘remote’ areas access further and even higher education through a college network covering more than half of the landmass of Scotland, and is the current model sustainable in the face of ever-growing financial pressures?

Read more: The New Highland Clearances: The full list of articles

We travelled to the Highlands and the Isle of Skye to see for ourselves, and found institutions with unique histories rooted in the communities around which they have been built.

In the coming days, we’ll also be bringing you stories of the transformative power of colleges and speaking to individuals who have seen the trajectory of their whole lives changed by their experiences of adult learning.

Colleges are, however, far too diverse and vibrant for us to do anything more than offer a brief snapshot of some of the extraordinary work going on every single day, and perhaps in some ways that’s part of the problem. One might argue that the great strength of further education is also a potential weakness, because its astonishing and fascinating diversity is the very thing that makes it so difficult to appreciate the true and full value of Scotland’s colleges.

But if that is the case then a new approach is needed – and quickly – because now more than ever the price of that collective ignorance is simply too high.

In preparing this series we have seen and heard why colleges are critical to Scotland’s current and future prosperity, and that the only road towards any destination in the direction of net zero runs directly through the further education sector.

Educators, experts and business owners told us that you can have a just transition to a green economy or you can have a crippled and contracting college system – but you certainly cannot have both.

College education changes lives, and countries, for the better. It is a story that deserves to be told and a promise that deserves to be honoured.

Join us next week as we shed light on The State of Scotland's Colleges.