As our special series on The State of Scotland's Colleges draws to a close, education writers James McEnaney and Garrett Stell reflect on the main lessons they have learned about the sector.

People don’t know enough about the college sector

Colleges are absolutely vital to Scotland, educating hundreds of thousands of people each year and making an absolutely enormous contribution to the economy. There are campuses in every corner of the country, and partnerships between the sector and schools, universities, businesses and more.

And yet, most people don’t really know much about colleges – how they work, who they serve, and what sort of state they’re currently in.

Colleges are in serious financial trouble

To start our special we revealed the true scale of the funding crisis facing the college sector, where cuts to funding levels have combined with sky-high inflation to produce a budget gap of nearly £500m over three years.

That represents a clear and undeniable difference between the funding colleges have received and the cash they would actually need to continue doing the job we ask of them – indeed, the minister responsible for the sector even admitted to the existence of this gap when challenged in parliament, but continues to insist that the government will not provide more money to the sector.

Industrial disputes won’t end soon

With colleges so far in the red, is it really any wonder that the industrial action we’ve seen rumble on and on for years shows no signs of stopping?

This week, the EIS-FELA lecturers’ union announced the next stage in their campaign for an improved pay offer – there will be no strikes for a fortnight from May 6 (“as a show of goodwill and to afford an opportunity for continuing discussions in an attempt to reach a resolution”) but, if no deal has been done by the end of that window, all colleges will be hit with nine days of strike action over the following three weeks.

Read more: The ESOL services that have changed lives in Glasgow

Short college courses helping students move on to next steps

Colleges are crucial to our net zero ambitions

The only road to a net-zero Scotland runs directly through the college sector – it’s that simple. Without colleges, a just transition to a green economy, or meaningful progress in reducing our carbon emissions, are impossible.

Colleges are where the workers of the future we hope to enjoy will come from – but only if we invest properly in the present.  

Although innovative projects are aiming the make a difference, employers and economists warn that Scotland facing a major skills gap that, as things stand, is not being tackled with anything like enough urgency.

Partnerships within college regions could help alleviate funding pressures

During our series, we came to understand much more about how colleges are structured and how they interact with each other. Some of Scotland's 13 college regions consist of multiple colleges, and even some across different regions are either nearby or share common threads.

A closer look at the UHI partnership showed how collaboration between colleges–whether that's partnering for virtual or off-campus curriculum offerings or straight sharing of resources and equipment–is one possible solution for helping colleges survive the funding crisis.

This weekend, we'll look at another example from the US of how colleges are sharing costs by partnering to offer expensive, resource-heavy courses without duplicating across campuses.

Everyone now seems to agree: the government must step in

When the current industrial dispute kicked off, unions and employers were pointing fingers at each other – now, they’re both pointing squarely at the Scottish Government. In fact, pretty much everyone we spoke to who wasn’t working for the Scottish Government told us that the only way forward was for ministers to step in and (crucially) properly fund the national bargaining system that they imposed on the sector.

Colleges change lives and are too important to fail

No matter where we looked in the college sector, we found people whose lives had been, or are being, utterly transformed.

For many of them, this success has come after being let down, often repeatedly, over the course of their lives.

Colleges do so much, but at the heart of their mission is the person who just needs a bit of help, a slightly different route, or a second chance in order to realise their ambitions.