The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday April 24 2024 #Education

The Scotsman

Scotsman head of news catches up with education correspondent Calum Ross who is at a Colleges Scotland conference in Glasgow

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for Wednesday.

00:13My name is Dan Miller.

00:14I'm head of news at the Scotsman and I'm joined today by our educations correspondent, Callum

00:20Ross.

00:21Callum, can you talk us through where you're coming to from today?

00:24Hi Dale.

00:25I'm coming from the City of Glasgow College in Glasgow, obviously, and that's for this

00:31year's Colleges Scotland Conference.

00:34And Callum, I know that you've just heard from Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth.

00:38We'll get on the speaking about what she had to say shortly, but firstly, let's talk about

00:43the front page of today's Scotsman.

00:46And we led with a picture of Louis, who's turned six, but also a bid to clear victims

00:53of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

00:56Confirmation from the Scottish Government, they are looking at the summer to bring in

00:59fresh legislation.

01:01There was a real war of words yesterday because it was confirmed that Northern Ireland would

01:06be basically covered under the UK legislation, the UK Government legislation.

01:13Scotland would not.

01:14Now, Scotland is obviously devolved in this legal area, but both Humza Yousaf and Justice

01:19Secretary Angela Constance were very angry, to put it lightly, that they weren't going

01:26to be included as part of the UK-wide legislation.

01:30Angela Constance described it as a betrayal of the victims in Scotland, but it has certainly

01:36offered an impetus for the Scottish Government to get moving on its own legislation.

01:41And this summer is what's being said for some justice for those victims.

01:48Colleges, this comes against the backdrop of the speech today of some pretty heavy cuts

01:53for colleges across Scotland as well.

01:56What did Gina Gilruth have to say?

01:58That's right, Dale, there's about 140 delegates here today, and you're right, it does come

02:05at a time of ongoing uncertainty, really, for the sector, kind of 8% real-terms cuts

02:11for the coming year, on top of 8.5% real-terms cuts since 2021.

02:18Now, interesting delegates we're supposed to be hearing from First Minister Humza Yousaf

02:23today, but he pulled out at the last minute yesterday, I believe.

02:28Not certain of the reason, his office just says, you know, these things happen with the

02:33First Minister's diary.

02:34They got Jenny Gilruth instead, Education Secretary, as you say.

02:41What the people in the room, you know, leaders from colleges, what they really wanted to

02:44hear was that Ms Gilruth had found some more money for them.

02:48That wasn't forthcoming, there's obviously a lot of warm words about the importance of

02:53colleges and how they shouldn't be seen as second choice.

03:01In terms of the financials, there was an announcement, or a kind of part announcement, they said

03:07the government was taking forward a recommendation from colleges that would allow them to keep

03:1370% of the proceeds of the sale of assets, which sounds a bit complicated, but it's something

03:21that colleges have been asking for to raise some money, I think, in the past, basically,

03:27when they sold buildings, all the money went back to the government, because ultimately

03:32colleges are funded by the government.

03:34The other kind of announcement from the Cabinet Secretary was that Hamza Yousaf, the First

03:38Minister, had given the Cabinet some homework, and that each Cabinet member was to go out

03:44to a college at some point this year, just really to see what's happening in colleges

03:50and to look at the opportunities there, because it's a time of change for the sector.

03:58Homework, never something you generally like to get, Callum.

04:02But talk me through, you've covered a bit about the impact for universities in particular

04:06recently, we know 28 million worth of cuts, you wrote a couple of stories about it last

04:12week. We know the likes of Aberdeen University have been looking to cut back on certain

04:17courses. How bad is this picture for colleges?

04:20Because they have been hit hard as well, haven't they?

04:23Look, Shona Struthers, the Chief Executive of Colleges Scotland, was here today and she

04:28said if it keeps going the way it's going in the next five to ten years, then the

04:32situation will just be dire.

04:35You know, universities have their problems, but at least they can make money by other

04:39means, you know, by charging huge fees to international students and that kind of thing.

04:43Colleges don't have those kind of options to the same extent.

04:47So, yeah, I mean, there's big cuts on the horizon, I would expect in the next few

04:52years, there already has been.

04:54There's a row actually here last year at City of Glasgow College about compulsory

04:58redundancy plans, which I think an agreement was eventually reached with the unions.

05:03But I think there's likely to be more of that.

05:06Jenny Gilruth, you know, she said that the colleges, the picture for colleges is going

05:12to change over the next five to ten years, although she's kind of presenting that as

05:17you know, the potential to create opportunities to have a brighter future.

05:21But I think there's likely to be more kind of painful decisions along the way over the

05:27next few months and years as well.

05:30And Callum, just to finish, it feels like you've been writing a lot of bad news about

05:33the education sector, but it was a nice story.

05:37You can read it on the Scotsman site today, linked to someone from St Andrews

05:41University, getting a family back out of Gaza.

05:44Can you just tell us a bit about that quickly?

05:47That's right, that's right.

05:49Dr Malika Sheikh, she's from Palestine, she's a security and peace studies kind of

05:55expert at St Andrews University.

05:57We did a piece with her a few months ago.

06:00She'd started a fundraising campaign to get her family out and she raised over 50

06:05grand in just 24 hours, eventually getting up to 80,000 pounds.

06:10So, yeah, nice, nice story.

06:12She got her eight members of her family out a couple of weeks ago, I think, and she

06:17shared some nice pictures of her being reunited with her family.

06:21But she does point out, you know, there's many other kind of fundraisers like this

06:24that haven't sort of received the same amount of money and she's kind of urged

06:29people to support them.

06:32You can read all Callum's work by looking at the education tab.

06:37It's in the navigation bar at Scotsman.com.

06:40He'll have a wrap of what's come out of the college's conference published on the site

06:45later today. And you can get all your latest news where you like to get it, Facebook X

06:52or go out and buy a copy of the paper in print tomorrow.

06:55Thanks, everyone, for joining us.

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