If you could improve one thing about your college’s building or estate, what would it be? Would you kit every classroom out with the latest technology? Would you assign dedicated space to local employers? Or would you upgrade the boiler and fix the leaky roof?

College estates across the UK range massively in size, age and quality. Some are modern, some are stately. Others are unfit for purpose. 

For now, college buildings stand empty – but they will be full of life and learning again. When that time comes, upgrades will need to happen. 

News: Government launches online workplace skills platform

Background: Conservatives announce £1.8bn for college buildings

More: Why we need investment in college buildings 

The government has acknowledged this challenge and has confirmed to Tes that, despite the coronavirus crisis, chancellor Rishi Sunak’s commitment to delivering  £1.5 billion of capital funding to colleges in England (and £300 million to colleges in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) remains in place.

Funding for college buildings

When the funding was first pledged by prime minister Boris Johnson last year, a statement from the Conservative Party stressed that colleges would have to work up robust plans to make sure the money is spent wisely.

So, when it comes to investing in buildings and estates, what does wise spending look like?

Fit for purpose and eco-friendly

Making sure that college estates are fit for purpose is absolutely crucial, says Activate Learning principal Cheri Ashby. Last year, Activate spent £30,000 to £40,000 making basic improvements to buildings, 

“Across the FE sector, there has been a real underinvestment in capital build. When the Surrey colleges joined Activate Learning, they hadn’t received a significant amount of investment in terms of the estate around all health and safety, compliance, leaky roofs, leaky windows,” she says. 

“Our focus has been about getting the infrastructure – even to the point of getting boilers and heating and so on – to make the environment a good learning environment for students.”

Marie-Thérèse McGivern, former principal of Belfast Metropolitan College and commissioner on the College of the Future commission, says that some college buildings need much more than basic maintenance upgrades to be effective learning environments. 

“I have a building that was a 1950s secondary school and no matter how much we do to it, it will never reach the standards that other buildings have,” she says.

McGivern says that the new Titanic Quarter Campus at the college was built with the current climate crisis in mind: “We wanted it to be as close to carbon-neutral and energy-efficient as possible. It’s cheaper to heat, it uses natural light so it’s cheaper to run and it was built at a much higher standard than other buildings we have. We’ve been constantly upgrading and attempting to keep the Titanic Campus as efficient as we can.”

But sustainability isn’t just about new-builds: older college building, too, could run more efficiently, says Paul McKean, head of FE and skills at not-for-profit technology company Jisc. He says that, as a matter of course, college leaders should be considering how all buildings – new and old – could be more eco-friendly.

“It’s things like having a little sensor on the wall that says the windows need opening or the lights need brightening or dimming. It’s about asking, 'Do we really need the lights on?'” he asks. “It’s more energy-efficient if we don’t, and probably better for the learning environment for the learner not to have too many lights on at the same time. It’s making the building understand that. Some of that stuff is available to retrofit, so it doesn't matter whether it's a brand new state-of-the-art building or not.”

Serving employers and the economy 

So if you’re building a college estate from scratch, and you’ve ensured it’s structurally safe and can run sustainably, how do you ensure that it meets the needs of your employers and the economy?

Ashby says that design of college buildings and estates need to go hand in hand with planning a curriculum. And employers, she says, must have an input. 

“We have care skills suites which are simulated working environments. They look like a hospital ward, and all of those spaces have been co-created with the local hospitals. It’s really important that students have the opportunity to learn in a real-life working environment and the buildings reflect that,” she says. 

McGivern agrees and says that in order to truly cater to the needs of employers, colleges must be accessible beyond the traditional teaching hours. She says that buildings will have to be open on weekends and late at night for adults to do intensive courses. 

“Some colleges are already flexible to that. We work with a big bakery here and we have provided courses at 7am because that’s when staff are finishing the bakery shift. That is unusual and it takes place on the employer's premises. But if employers are taking an interest, we should be asking ourselves, 'Why don’t we dedicate a classroom or an area in the college to specific employers, accessible at a time suitable to both them and the learner?'”

“The need for retail space is less and less, and the potential for those spaces being let at a lower rent are much greater. Buildings can be easily adapted: there’s no reason why, for example, every Debenhams in England couldn’t be part of a local college," he says.

“Obviously there would have to be significant alterations to them and you could only fit in certain types of operations. But courses like catering, hairdressing, IT and admin could all be delivered from town centres. You can see how a town centre can be regenerated by a footfall from 16-to 19-year-olds and adults accessing studies.

“We’re talking about retraining the population. There aren’t jobs for life any more, and part of the core agenda for FE colleges is being flexible enough for adults to retrain or upskill. We need extended hours of open access in facilities." 

Being technology-enabled

But no matter where buildings are based, no matter how many employers have dedicated space within them, and no matter what times they are open, they must all be future-proofed with technology, says McKean. 

“If you’ve got holes in your roof, you need to fix the holes in your roof. You need a comfortable environment that is safe. But then technology enhances the bits that you do on top of that," he explains. 

"If you are building a £50 million college and you’re not aware of the technologies that are available, then that college will not stand the test of time. 

“It’s about having a 'digital mentality' by default. It’s about asking, 'What do you want the learners to leave with? How do you want the teachers to do their job to their best ability? How do you want the administration to work?' And then, 'How can technology help?' It isn’t about being technology-led, but technology-enabled,” he says.

McKean says that having open spaces that can be simulations of different working environments can ensure that buildings are just as effective in the future. If some classrooms are left completely empty, students can go in wearing VR headsets and train in a huge range of industries. 

“It’s not forward-thinking, it’s just common sense. And yet, for some people, planning a building, it’s almost unfathomable that a room is left empty. Immersive VR experiences don’t just have to be about workplaces either, they could be a trip to see the surface of the Moon, or a field trip to Egypt,” he says. 

“There isn’t anything that can’t be simulated in one way or another. Look at welding. It’s expensive and there are all sorts of health and safety risks. If someone can do it virtually for the first time, they can be competent before they even use the tools for real. The efficiencies and the savings to do that would be massive.”

The coronavirus pandemic has raised many questions about remote teaching and learning across education. Colleges have been forced to utilise technology in order to be able to continue to reach their learners in lockdown. 

But as much as colleges should take advantage of the digital world, there must always be a physical space for learners to access, says McGivern. 

“If we all become isolated learners in our own space, that isn’t going to help the mental health profile of young people. If there was ever a reason to have a physical space, it’s about staying very healthy mentally, having social interaction and learning together. 

“As a society, we want to emphasise connection: technology is not a disconnection, but an enabler and facilitator for better connection between people. Students need to be in the same physical space, talking with each other, interacting with each other, using the technology together,” she says.

The finer details of the colleges' capital fund are still to be announced – the Department of Education told Tes that it is still considering how to best achieve “this ambition”. One thing is clear, however: the UK faces a huge challenge in ensuring that, post-Brexit, our young people are equipped with the skills to ensure that we thrive economically. Colleges, and the FE sector more widely, have a vital role to play in this – and the upgrading of their buildings and estates will, undoubtedly, shape and facilitate that role. 

The capital funding allocated must, indeed, be spent wisely.