New review aims to future proof Scotland's colleges

Colleges Scotland CEO Gavin Donoghue spoke exclusively to The Herald’s education correspondent Garrett Baylor Stell about what to expect from the review.

There is a university review running in parallel with this, and a key component of it has been the acceptance that (nearly) everything is on the table. Is that the same case for colleges?

“Our work is—at its core—evidence-based. That’s going to be the very first pillar: to synthesise all the existing evidence together. So, we can’t go into this, either as a sector or with government and the Scottish Funding Council, with any preconceived notions as to exactly what the outcome is.

“But I think it should become clear, once we begin to gather evidence, that colleges are the most cost‑effective means of delivery, and that they can and should be a first choice for people post‑school.”

The recent Colleges Scotland election manifesto reinforced the idea of colleges as “anchor institutions” for their communities. Yet, those communities are extremely diverse, and colleges must account for that. How will this work account for local flexibility while still taking a national and long-term perspective?

“The college sector is very diverse—both in the size of institutions and in their geographic spread—and our work must really be place‑based. We see from the First Minister’s recent speech in Glasgow that there’s going to be an increasing focus on regionalisation. Colleges already are regionalised and have been for over a decade now.

“So, the work will need to be very much place‑based and locally responsive, because there will potentially be different solutions that emerge from different regions of Scotland.

“And again, we need to be open to exploring that in this process.”

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Not only is this being done on a tight timeline, there could be a change in government halfway through the project. Are you worried this could get lost post-election?

“The timescales for the workstream are incredibly ambitious, but the college sector is willing to put its shoulder to the wheel to make sure that we try and meet those timescales.

“But you’re right—the most important part is that both the process and the outcomes of this workstream have cross‑party support. So, we’ve already contacted all the education spokespersons from the various political parties to talk them through that, in a similar vein to how the university framework has that cross‑party element as well.”

Colleges are used to making changes year on year. How can an ambitious project like this one take a wide enough lens to benefit the whole sector, while still accounting for the fact that each college will inevitably look different in five or ten years?

“Colleges have already transformed over the last decade with digitalisation and national bargaining, so they’ve got a track record of successful transformation, and this workstream is the next step in that evolution.

“Colleges already adapt their curriculum and their work on a weekly and yearly basis to meet the demands of employers and learners. So, they’re quite uniquely positioned to adapt to the changes coming down the line in the economy, and to the changing needs of both employers and learners.

“I believe colleges are the most adaptive part of our education system. They are constantly adapting to changing learner needs, changing employer needs, and changing signals from government at any one time."

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Over the years, there have been recurring suggestions about streamlining the sector—mergers, changes to regional structures, even bringing colleges back under some form of local authority control. Is that sort of structural change on the table until the evidence rules it out?

“We’ll go through the process and gather evidence, but some of it is already in the public domain—whether that’s the Withers Review, which takes a clear direction of travel for the skills system in Scotland, or the recent Tertiary Education Act.

“So, we’re not starting from an evidence base of zero. We already have a lot of the building blocks there, and we’ll be pulling the evidence together to see where we can get agreement through all three partners, and then in the broader workshops with a wider stakeholder group.

“In terms of colleges, they’re already in the hearts of the regions. We want to see that expanded more. In the colleges' manifesto, we talked about them being the key skills partners in the regional economic partnerships. And from our engagement with all political parties, we can see there’s going to be an increasing focus on regionalisation in every party manifesto. I think that plays to the strength that colleges have as these key skills partners in regional economic partnerships.”

Scotland's Colleges serve varied demographics with a wide variety of economic and social needs. (Image: UHI North, West and Hebrides)

The Withers report and other reviews have made clear recommendations in the past, but those recommendations have largely been set aside. Do you believe recommendations that emerge from this project will be taken more seriously this time around?

“We’re not starting from an evidence base of zero. We’ve got the Scottish Government’s intentions from Purpose and Principles. We’ve got the independent review undertaken by James Withers. We’ve got the tertiary review undertaken by the SFC in 2021. So, there’s evidence out there, but we need to pull all that together and synthesise it.

“There may well be new, creative ideas that come up in the discussions, and we absolutely have to be open to that. That’s one of the key principles of the discussion—to have this kind of creative thinking around it.

“But I think the evidence shows us an increase in demand for vocational and technical education, and colleges are the primary means of delivering that. I feel quite confident that, as a college sector, we’re on the winning side of the argument about the needs of the economy, but also the needs of society and the anti‑poverty work colleges do.”

Are you worried that we are in a situation where a lot of necessary work is happening all at once, and the interests might start competing for limited funding?  

“Our work has to be outcomes‑focused and learner‑focused. So between colleges, the Scottish Funding Council and the Scottish Government, it needs to meet those criteria. It needs to work for our economy. It needs to work for the college social mission and the anti‑poverty mission as well.

“There’s a lot around that where I think colleges have a real strength: they are the most cost‑efficient means of delivery in the education system. Unfortunately, that’s because they’ve been chronically underfunded over a number of years, until the most recent budget, where we saw an increase. But it means they are incredibly lean, cost‑efficient organisations.

“So, if cost is a pressure that needs to be addressed—whether through the college or university work, or any broader discussion about the tertiary system—I think colleges have a very strong case to make that they can and should be the first choice of delivery.”