Scotland’s colleges will see a funding boost of over £70 million next year, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has announced.

In its indicative funding announcement, the SFC pledged a total of £1.9 billion to colleges and universities to support students to complete their studies, create new funded places for students and apprenticeships, and protect research.

Individual colleges will see increases to their teaching grants of between 6.9 percent and 12.8 percent, said the SFC, and that will include funding for mental health services and digital learning. They will also receive one-off funding to support employers to get the skills they need and to help people re-skill. 

These indicative allocations for the next academic year build on an additional investment of £80 million, also announced today for the current year. According to the SFC, alongside helping to ease significant financial pressures across the sector and lost income arising from the Covid pandemic, this investment includes an additional £40 million to support students to complete studies disrupted by the pandemic and to protect jobs across the sector. A further £20 million will provide an immediate boost for research and knowledge exchange, supporting Scotland’s economic recovery.

Opinion: Staff need to feel valued - and pay is key to that

Lockdown: Task force to help students complete courses

Background: Government ‘balancing harms’ on reopening education

Karen Watt, chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council, said: “Colleges and universities have been flexible, responsive and innovative in dealing with the impact of Covid-19. The funding we are announcing today will support students to gain qualifications and move on to further studies or into employment, and will protect vital research for the future. Investing in this pipeline of talent and research matters for Scotland’s social and economic recovery, and future prosperity.”

Scotland’s college sector faces strike action tomorrow in a dispute between the EIS-FELA union, which represents lecturers and employers, over what the union says is an attempt by college leaders to replace lecturers with lower-paid, less-qualified teaching staff. 

An agreement was reached at the National Joint Negotiating Committee (NJNC), but this has reportedly not been ratified by employers.

EIS-FELA president Charlie Montgomery said: “It is our understanding that despite the EIS-FELA executive ratifying the NJNC agreement, Colleges Scotland failed to follow suit at their meeting yesterday.”

He added: “We are obviously extremely disappointed, following a lot of work to reach agreement through negotiations, that this appears to be the position taken by Colleges Scotland. Colleges Scotland’s failure to ratify the NJNC agreement that its negotiators agreed means that we have no resolution to the dispute. Our programme of strike action will therefore commence on Thursday 25 March.”

Shona Struthers, chief executive of Colleges Scotland, said:  “The strike action planned for Thursday by the EIS-FELA is extremely disappointing after what has already been a very difficult and challenging year for staff and students across Scotland. The EIS-FELA is taking unnecessary industrial action at a critical time, when there is a need for stability and certainty within the sector as we deal with the impact of the pandemic.

“The EIS-FELA has accepted that there is no national plan to replace lecturers with tutor/assessor/instructor roles nor any other support staff roles, yet have still pressed ahead with strike action. It appears that the EIS-FELA has not considered the impact that strike action will have on students who are trying to complete their courses by the end of the academic year, in the midst of lockdown restrictions, and risks having their learning further compromised by needless industrial action.

“We are still working through one detail of an agreement with the EIS-FELA, and the employers want to make sure that it recognises the complex and professional nature of the role that lecturers undertake.  We also need to be confident that, in reaching a resolution, we don’t agree a solution that could impact adversely on staff not within the scope of EIS-FELA, ie, support staff.  As employers, colleges have a duty of care to all staff. The employers’ representatives are meeting with the EIS-FELA early next week to continue discussions.”