Principal Paul Little: 'Colleges are unsung drivers of our economy'

The impact of unprecedented real-term funding cuts, the legacy of high inflation with the subsequent impact on running costs, aggravated further by unrealistic pay demands, mean that colleges must work exponentially harder to protect student learning, to support the wellbeing and livelihoods of our staff, and to remain resilient civic anchors for metropolitan, regional, and island economies.

Colleges are also challenged in tackling chronic and acute skills shortages, particularly amongst struggling SMEs and those economic sectors still blighted from Brexit and the Pandemic. 

As inclusive tertiary institutions, colleges play a unique role in safeguarding multiple lifeline pathways for learners into both college and university education, with a particular focus on widening access, upskilling and reskilling.

Plunged now into a cost-of-living crisis, having endured previously a global health crisis and before that a global financial crisis, colleges have been compromised by a loss of institutional autonomy, by the cessation of borrowing powers to renew our digital infrastructure and estates, and by an inability to retain end-of-year surpluses to mitigate the next crisis, whatever that may be. 

Colleges, however, limp along with characteristic stoicism. They have been ill served by the inertia of historical funding which bakes in a bifurcated hierarchy of Scottish post-school learning. 

The promise of an ambitious new Tertiary system is being held back by the glacial implementation of much needed reform. 

I fear that Scotland is sleepwalking into a vocationally light future, with an under powered skills system and an under-invested skills infrastructure. 

This will ultimately hamper future productivity and innovation, especially in the renaissance of Scottish shipbuilding and the retrofit of our built environment as we transition to net zero. 

Colleges have never recovered from previous funding cuts that have led to the effective dismantling of adult learning, of teaching training colleges, of City & Guilds craft qualifications, and of the social safety net of night school.

What’s fundamentally now at stake is the permanent loss of specialist professional education courses and significant chunks of practical hands-on learning. Funding choices have funding consequences. 

Encouraged by the Scottish Funding Council, colleges are now thinking the unthinkable: scenario planning reduced new intakes with fewer curriculum choices. Meanwhile, College trustees are being asked to make impossible choices between offsetting core funding or the expedient loss of valuable teaching or support staff expertise. 

Having had more than their fair share of reform done to them for over a decade, Scottish colleges have systematically pared their management structures to the bone, thereby reducing opportunities for promotion. 

With payroll costs accounting for over three quarters of overall college expenditure, we are now reluctantly being forced into the territory of cuts in teaching.  As the Cumberford-Little report identified in 2020, there are alarming disparities in the funding allocated to schools and to universities compared to that allocated to colleges. 

If Scotland continues with the status quo, with such lopsided funding, one might well conclude that despite the cheerleading of warm rhetoric, vocational education is being deprioritised, which will have huge consequences for our foundation economy and for the life chances of our key workers. 

In a contracted college sector, who can step up to effectively tackle future economic downturns, to upskill and reskill at pace, to mitigate skills gaps, to undo the slide away from STEM education or who will support lifetime learning? Will there still be guardians of the ladders of opportunity or the access pathways?  

This week City of Glasgow College hosted Colleges Scotland’s Annual Conference, bringing together representatives from all twenty-four colleges across Scotland to discuss the future of college education. Every year, over 250,000 learners are transformed by the world-class technological education and skills training provided by these tertiary institutions. 

Jamie Genevieve shared her inspirational learning and career journey. Jamie enrolled at college to explore a passion for make-up artistry and was encouraged to develop her craft, met a supportive network and began to believe in her abilities and become ambitious to realise them. Jamie now runs a global cosmetics brand and commands an audience of millions of loyal social media followers. 

We also heard from City of Glasgow College Alumna Chloe Oswald who began by being unsure of her future career, although very sure of her interest in home economics and so joined City of Glasgow College to develop her culinary skills. 

Chloe showed real flair in patisserie and chocolate making and went on to represent the College in WorldSkills UK finals and then went even further to compete against the world’s finest patisserie chefs. 

Blossoming in confidence Chloe then went on to work in the Andrew Fairlie restaurant at Gleneagles – one of Scotland’s only two restaurants to hold 2 Michelin Stars – before launching her own luxury chocolate brand ‘Chocolatia’, which now supplies Scotland’s leading hotels and restaurants.

Both these young women are fervent advocates for the pivotal role that colleges played in helping them turn a passion into a successful business. The theme for the conference was ‘When Colleges Thrive - Scotland Thrives’, and there is compelling evidence to support that statement. 

The Institute for Public Policy Research provided an independent report highlighting the vital role colleges play in communities and the significant economic value provided. Meanwhile, research undertaken by the Fraser of Allander Institute revealed that eight City of Glasgow College graduate cohorts between 2011/12 and 2018/19, contributed £6 billion to the Scottish economy over the long term, equating to £56,000 per graduate.

Colleges are the unsung powerhouses of Scotland’s economy. Our skilled graduates contribute billions to Scotland’s economy each year, across over 200 diverse industries, and they are also pillars in local neighbourhoods and marginalised communities. 

As Scotland’s largest College, we are asking for fewer bureaucratic strings, much less splintering of funding into ever more biscuit tins and ultimately a more equitable share of core tertiary funding sooner rather than later to enable us to continue to deliver long into the future for the unseen, for the disadvantaged and as public institutions for many rather than the enabled few. 

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