Government must support colleges
COTLAND needs the college sector. Not only is it vital in helping meet the country’s skills shortages in tourism, catering, care work and numerous other areas, colleges provide an essential route into education and work for thousands of Scots from vulnerable or deprived backgrounds. Further education has played a central role in extending opportunity and narrowing the inequalities that still exist in the education system – and it is a job that is far from finished.
So why, instead of being protected, has the college sector taken a battering? In the years that the SNP has been in power, funding has been dramatically reduced, there has been a massive drop in the number of students, and the financial support available to the students who are still there has been failing to keep up with demand.
To top it all, the merger process that we were told would create efficiencies and boost student performance appears to have done the opposite – there has been a drop in student attainment and staff numbers have fallen. Part-time courses have also been slashed, which is particularly regrettable as they are often the only option for students with part-time jobs or caring responsibilities. Part-time courses can also be a vital first step back into education for students from deprived backgrounds.
Sadly, instead of all these problems being tackled, the latest financial forecast from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) suggests the situation is getting even worse. In August, Audit Scotland warned that 11 out of 20 colleges were predicting a deficit, but two months on, the SFC forecast is that, in fact, 16 colleges will face a deficit and end the 2016/17 financial year in the red. Colleges are also facing a bill of about £80 million as a result of implementing the Scottish Government’s policy on harmonising pay across the sector.
The potential consequences for colleges, and their students, are clear: a sector that has already seen a cut in funding of 27 per cent since 2011 is going to come under even greater financial pressure and may even, according to Colleges Scotland, struggle to remain sustainable. And if that leads to even further cuts in a sector that has already borne the brunt of them, it is the students who will suffer.
Having already been through a difficult merger process, it is hard to see now how further damage to the college sector can be avoided without more funding from the Scottish Government. No-one is questioning the policy of pay harmonisation – there were some severe anomalies in pay across the sector that needed to be addressed – but forcing the colleges to pay for the policy without extra money is only going to deepen the crisis.
It may be that, in time, as the Educational Institute of Scotland suggests, colleges will have to be permitted to access the reserves lodged with the arm’s length foundations that were set up when colleges were brought back into the public sector. But the bottom line is that, if the college sector is to recover, it will need more funds from the Scottish Government.
Colleges have shown considerable flexibility and creativity in dealing with their shrinking budgets. But they have gone as far as they can without a much-overdue show of support from the Government.