One of Scotland's wealthiest businessmen has warned that a pioneering project to give a fresh start to pupils deemed unsuitable for secondary schools is facing an uncertain future unless more public funding can be found.
Jim McColl, chief executive of the Clyde Blowers engineering firm, said the project would not continue in the longer term if most of its annual £850,000 running costs continued to be born by private businesses.
Instead, he wants to see the model of Newlands Junior College, in Glasgow, embedded in the education system with greater support from councils and the Scottish Government.
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Currently, Newlands is being given £100,000 a year by Glasgow City Council over five years with matched funding from the government to set up the facility - which runs a raft of courses for 60 pupils from surrounding schools deemed to be at risk of dropping out.
Mr McColl said the model had been a success, with 19 out of 20 of the first group of students securing a job or apprenticeship, and he is already holding discussions about expanding to Edinburgh, Dundee, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and North and South Lanarkshire.
However, without a greater investment from the public sector he warned such colleges were unlikely to be sustainable.
He said: "The Scottish Government needs to make a decision about whether this is a system that would help young people in this most disadvantaged group - which it clearly does - and get behind it.
"If, by spending an extra £6,500 a year of public money on these pupils, you can get them to a positive destination after two years at school and two years at a college like Newlands - giving them skills, developing self-belief and getting them to think about work - then more state funding has to be considered.
"I don't think the current model is sustainable in the long-term without a shift to state funding because you are not going to get any business funding it to the level that we have funded it and other businesses that have joined with us to fund it have been doing.
"We cannot continue doing that because it costs about £850,000 a year for us to run the college with the food, the pick-ups, the transport and other extra-curricular activities."
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Mr McColl said academic pupils who completed six years of study at secondary school and then went on to university could have as much as £75,000 of public money spent on their education, but those who left after fourth year had just £24,000 of investment in their future.
In addition, he argues that the cost to the public purse will be repaid because young people who pass through the colleges are far more likely to get a job and lead a stable life rather than costly alternatives such as prison or a lifetime of benefits.
He added: "We are currently spending a fraction of the amount of public money on pupils who need the most help compared to those from middle class suburbs such as Newton Mearns.
"I want to see a model where the state picks up 60 per cent of the overall cost of attending a college like Newlands and private business picks up the rest and takes an interest in the young people in their community because they want to help. That link is crucial because that is where the jobs and apprenticeships come from.
"But this has got to come from the top. It has got to come from the state that we need these colleges to augment schools because there are a group of young people who need another type of input and they should not be seen as a failure."
Newlands Junior College, which was established with funding from the Scottish Government, provides vocational and academic courses as well as a character building activities, leadership courses and jobs skills.
All those who complete the two year course are guaranteed an apprenticeship with one of the private firms who are also supporting it with private funding.
The college is situated close to where Mr McColl trained as an apprentice engineer on the site of the former Weir Pumps factory in Cathcart, Glasgow.
The entrepreneur left school at 16 with three O Grades, but through further training and studies he eventually bought the company he started his apprenticeship with.
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