HARD-PRESSED colleges have called for the further-education sector to be given equal footing with universities amid concerns over a funding discrepancy.
New figures suggest colleges are paid millions of pounds less than universities for delivering the same level of courses, prompting allegations of a two-tier system.
Estimates suggest the further-education sector in Scotland is missing out on £14 million every year because of the anomaly.
There are already concerns over the way the Scottish Government has funded both sectors in recent years. The public money spent on universities for teaching has been protected to ensure they remain competitive with institutions in England, who can now charge fees of up to £9000 a year.
However, colleges have faced significant cuts to their teaching budgets. Courses have been cut and jobs lost in recent years.
The most recent figures show 1300 further-education staff left the sector in the past year alone.
The current concerns centre on the amount of funding colleges get for Higher National Diploma (HND) and Higher National Certificate (HNC) qualifications, which are seen as comparable to the first year or two of a university degree.
The money colleges receive per student is £1285 a year for these courses, compared to £1820 for a university student.
Statistics from 2010/11 show the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (Saas) supported 26,205 students in higher education in the college sector.
As NUS Scotland highlighted in a submission to Holyrood's education committee, if most of these students studied for an HNC or HND, increasing the fee paid by Saas for these courses could bring in a further £14m to Scotland's colleges.
A spokesman for the EIS teaching union, which represents lecturers, said the "significant difference" had long been a cause for concern.
"Much of the teaching in many subjects at HNC and HND level compares closely to similar subject teaching in the first and second year of degree courses, so should attract comparable levels of funding," said a spokesman.
"Many universities will accept students with relevant HNC or HND qualifications directly into the latter years of degree courses, so there is clear recognition that these qualifications and the teaching at colleges is of a high standard."
Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, said the extra funding could make a significant difference to encourage more college students into universities – a crucial way of widening access. "We could use this funding to ensure HNC and HND qualifications are accepted more widely by universities," he said.
John Henderson, chief executive of Scotland's Colleges, said: "Investing in colleges is of crucial importance to Scotland's future prosperity and economic recovery."
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The cost of delivering courses in universities is higher than in colleges, with this difference reflected in the funding paid to compensate both universities and colleges for notional fees which are waived for Scottish students.
“Colleges offer important learning opportunities and that’s why the Scottish Government has maintained college student support at record levels of over £95 million.
"In August of this year the Education Secretary announced a new student support package, which will provide a minimum income of £7250 for those from the lowest income households. It is expected this will benefit around 45,000 students each year, of which a large proportion will be college students.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article