 That's us live. Thank you very much. Good morning and welcome to the 18th meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee in 2022. The first item on our agenda is an evidence session being held in a round table format for our college regionalisation inquiry. During today's session, we will take evidence from student representatives and student association staff. I would like to welcome Alex Bryson, who is a student class representative from Fife College. I would like to welcome Nicole Cochran, student association development officer from West Lothian College, student association Heather Innes, current vice president, higher education and president-elect of Highlands and Islands Student Association. Kirstyn Coss, deputy president, Aberdeen Alton's North East Scotland College of Students Association. John O'Hara, who is joining us online. Senior learner, engagement manager, new college, Lanarkshire Students Association. Amy Monks, who is also joining us online. President, Dundee and Angus College Students Association. Last but not least, Al Wilson, director for Edinburgh College Students Association. Good morning to you all. Thank you for coming. Our session is hybrid today and, as I have mentioned, three of our witnesses, two of our witnesses rather, and one panel member are participating virtually. As those attending remotely won't be able to catch my eye, when you want to come in and we might direct questions to you as well, can I ask that you put a capital R in the chat bar? That's mostly for my eyes, because I can't read the lower case. The clerks will also be monitoring the chat box and I will bring you in when I can. Let's get going. Part of the regionalisation inquiry, the review, was to make sure that colleges and learning environments were much more learning-centred, so I'm opening that up to figure out, is that what your experience of the regionalisation has been? Does anyone want to go first on that one? Okay, Michael. I'm happy to answer, yes. Absolutely. I believe that that is the case. Our college, West Lothian College, has attributed lots of values to ensure that the approach to learning is definitely student-centred, including our own values that are shared with the student association, which are students in the centre. They've come up with lots of different projects and initiatives to ensure that students are being listened to. They have completed and organised a project called the trust project, which is developed for students that have trauma backgrounds and that are looking to develop into mainstream, and they have supported those students right through the project. They like to listen to student feedback and ensure that there are placements for students so that they are ready and eligible to progress into employment. As I said, they listen to student feedback, and that's really important. Thank you. Does anyone else want to make a comment on that? I'm very similar to McColl. Edinburgh College has had a range of initiatives put in place to help to ensure that the student voices are part of that on-going process of review and reform as the college progresses. There are lots of mechanisms in place to ensure that the student voice is heard. I think that some of those areas for Edinburgh College would be support around care experience students, which is an area that has grown quite significantly at Edinburgh College over the most recent couple of years. Equally, because of the scale of Edinburgh College, which is a very large college in comparison to some, it is working out the best practice at a more local level. Faculty and courses have done a good job to ensure that they are shaping that feedback mechanism to suit their students. Thank you very much, Al. Amy, online, is wanting to contribute. At Duninandis College, not only within the students association but as the college as a whole, we have been utilising services and methodology and everything that we do to make sure that our students are at the heart and centre of all our planning, whether that is in the classrooms, to treat it planning, that they are involved in having that shared ownership of all the decisions that are getting made, implementing them and reviewing them. We feel that that is going across the board, whether that is a class, CQL level, exact level or even up to board management. I am going to approach Stephanie Callaghan, if you want to put some questions to the group. Thanks very much, convener. Maybe coming first of all to Amy, who has just spoken. I am really interested to be heard in previous evidence about the idea that students really need that support to make sure that they are getting involved in the key decision making when they come to boards or with the CSA that they are not just reporting back on what it is that they have done. I am really interested in any examples of how students have influenced some of the key decisions that have been made there. We held a bomb con session in 2020, but it was still in the midst of the pandemic, so it was online, and it was all our board of management members, along with all our lead reps. They come together in a services and workshops style to inform our strategic plan for 2025, and we looked at the theme being the college of our future. All the students and all the S18, the senior exec were all part of that, and they worked together. They were split into small groups and break out rooms, utilising all the things that the fun things would lend, having to go digital, and on the online platform Mero. They worked together in small groups to break down assumptions to get to know each other on a more one-to-one human level, which I think helps immensely in everything. It was not the case of, oh my goodness, I am speaking to the chair of the board, it was not. I am speaking to Angela, she is into this. She has shared interests with me, so it really brought them barriers for our students to feel like they truly had that voice. It ran over two sessions where we used all those different tools and methods to see what that shared vision was for our college of the future. At the end of it, we came up with six main points together, and Simon, our principal, used them to directly influence his strategic plan for the whole college for 2025, which we then shared back to our students to say that you might have had to give up your a couple of afternoons for us, but here is where you were involved. You had your say from the very worst minute of that. You were involved through that whole process, and here is how it has come out of the end having used that. They could directly see that that feedback had effectively been closed, although it is always moving. They were able to see it on that full scale. That is great. I am just wondering if anyone else has anything to add, convener. I was just wondering if Kirsten, Heather and Alex, if that was a similar experience that you are having at your institutions, colleges? Alex? Yeah, pretty much, similar experience. Myself as a student rep, I have been involved in quite a lot of the conversations with regards to groups, teams and help available for other students. Heather? I think that with UHI it varies. On an executive level, regional level, we are definitely very involved. Our voice is seen as very important. When it gets down to the individual boards of management, it depends on differing attitudes. Everyone says that the voice of eyes is very important, but how they come across with that differs. Some see us as really important, some make it a little bit more difficult to get things across, putting board of management meetings at times when the student officer cannot make it and, as I said, they cannot make it ever. It does differ, but we deal with 12 different principles, rather than one, for example. It is a complicated and unique system. Okay, thank you. What about yourself, Kirsten? Yeah, at Nescal we are supported to be members of the board and to have our voice heard and to influence key decisions. We have had the opportunity to meet with the chair of the, I mean, before we sat on the board, opportunities to meet with the chair, opportunities to meet with the relevant committee chairs that we'd be with, and I think that that really helped to break down any potential barriers that might be there, because it can be quite intimidating when you've maybe only been at college for one year and then you're going to go to the board. It can be really, really intimidating, but to meet with them and to speak about silly things at the same time is discussed as the priorities for the college. I think that really helps to break down those barriers. Thank you very much. Anything else, Stephanie? Yep, just to follow up in perhaps as a question for Al, just now about how important the officer's roles are in actually supporting students to make sure that they are right in the impact on those key decisions? Yes, thanks very much. Absolutely. I think that full-time officers at college, student associations, are incredible and that the impact that they have is incredible. Certainly that's been my experience over the last six or seven years at Edinburgh College. The officers themselves, again, it's important to put it in context of what their life cycle is as students, compared to perhaps university student association officers. College student association officers might only have been a student for a number of months before they become a full-time officer and the support that they require, the training and the on-going personal development is a really key aspect to make sure that their contribution is as effective as possible. From my point of view, as a full-time member of staff in a student association, a key part of that is the training and development of those officers and on-going support throughout their term to make sure that they are as effective as possible whenever they get to board of management meetings or other committee meetings or even evidence sessions such as that, that they can contribute in a way that is meaningful. I think that the college student association sector is quite impressive if I say so myself in that way. I was wondering if John O'Hara, who is online, had anything that he wanted to respond to that. You're live, I think that things are on. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Very good. Just adding what Al said, it's inevitable that it's so important that a student officer is supported, especially sabaticals. At New College of Lancashire we have three main sabaticals, and that is down to previous experience in looking at what our culture of students need across the sector. I think that it's regional based, so our region is quite far apart. Our culture of students at Cumbernauld says that in their campus, compared with Mother Girl, there is a different demographic, so they need sometimes different support than they do in Motherwell. Having these sabatical officers and making sure that us as staff members support their students on their campuses, they are able to support their students at different levels, because students come in the door with different levels of needs. Whether we like it or not, every student demographic is different, but I definitely think that the more support that we give students has gone through. I think that 10 years ago, when I was a student president to now, the difference between what student officers are required to do then they were then, as it is hugely different. Recognising that and the colleges as a whole recognise that they need that support going forward is huge. I definitely think that there is change in the support that students need, especially officers, but having been lucky, having the sabatical officers full-time, is definitely a plus. Just a small thing, just about Amy saying about that variation at a local level as well. I'm just wondering if she wants to put across anything that we could maybe look at putting in place or rolling out to make sure that it's happening across the board. I'm Dundee Langus. I'm not only full-time sabatical officer and I cover our three campuses, which range from Dundee, Kingsway and Gardin and Arbroath. Again, we've got very much a city-based campus and then a more rural-based campus with outlines or towns. We have three vice presidents that are also all conscience, but work ten hours a week. We are also very lucky that we have a staff member as well, but, again, just as John said, the needs of our different campuses are completely, completely different. I do think that potentially having more of a presence at each campus on a full-time basis would really, really help us. Apologies, convener. I said Amy. I actually meant Heather, and I was looking at Heather, but it was Heather that made the call. Luckily, Amy had an answer. Heather, do you want to come in on Stephanie Callahan's question? Could you repeat it again? Sorry. It was just the fact that you said about that variation locally. Some areas, it was working really well, some areas not so well. I was just wondering if you had any comments on going forward what might be helpful to ensure that all students right across the board are getting that impact and encouragement. That is something that has been worked on this year. One of our staff members has been leading on a board of management project, so going to our local officers who sit on the boards of management and finding out what support they need and how it can be improved. That report should be coming out very soon, so we should see some very positive changes for next year, so we are feeling very hopeful and excited about that. Great. Thanks, convener. I think that Micoel would like to come in on that point as well. Yes. We introduced the two-year term for our officers, and that has been really helpful. That has been able to build confidence and empower them to be able to contribute effectively and to support them in their journey during the two-year term. Thanks, Micoel. Excuse me for that. Now we will move to some questions from Ruth MacDonald. Thank you, convener. It was good to hear about the sort of positive work working between the students and the colleges and that kind of getting to know the board and being able to go to them. I was interested particularly in what Amy said initially about the work that they did to get a shared vision, and I just wondered to sort of flip that slightly, did that work help at a time, because obviously we are not always going to share, student voice is not always going to share the vision of the board. There may be times of conflict or where they want to change or do something that students do not agree with. Did that work on the sort of positive side of things, help deal with that conflict? Has there been time where you have had to go and disagree with direction or with a specific thing that the management are wanting to do? I think that because we have that sort of shared ownership, it might not be the right word, but that shared view and involvement. I think that when it comes to making more difficult decisions or having to change things, because they have built up that really good mutual respect, that culture, when things do need to take a turn, they still involve the students at that point, or they come back to us and say, we have tried this, it is not going to happen or it is not working, can we go back to the students and develop something now? There is that really open channel of communication for us where we feel comfortable to do that with the students' voice at heart still. Do you feel that you can challenge decisions that you do not agree with? Yes. I would be interested to hear from the other students on that. Yes. I know that Kirsten wants to come into the responses that Mr Cush is right there on the last question, so there is that as well. Perhaps you can repeat the question as well to see if Kirsten might be able to respond to yours. Just in response to the previous question, I think that Amy had mentioned something about how different the campus is at Dundee and Angus, and I think that is something that we really struggle with in terms of having students involved. At Nescal, we have three very different campuses and a couple of different learning centres. We have a very rural or a campus that serves a rural area, a city-based campus and a campus that serves for construction and those kinds of professions. The students that attend those campuses are very different, and they are served by one regional president and the two smaller campuses are served by part-time presidents. It is really hard to build a culture where students feel like they are at the heart of decision making when you are only there 17 hours a week, and especially for myself, I represent two campuses to split my time over that at 17 and a half hours per week. It is really difficult to say that you are involved when you do not have the time to do that. Students know that they can come forward, but you cannot build a culture in such a short amount of time, so I completely agree with the full-time structure. That is a side effect of regionalisation. We have a group of very different people spread across a large area. It is a lot easier for smaller colleges, such as City of Glasgow, where they cover a really small area, whereas we cover such a huge area that our students are so different. We need more time to engage with students. I think that Graham Day would probably want to explore some of that with you later, so I will just go back to my question if that is okay. I suppose that, in some ways, you have answered about the challenges that have been represented about whether, along with all the good work that is done by the college to help to bring representatives on and feel able to challenge if there were times when you could challenge decisions and felt that the work that was done helped you to do that. Sometimes it can be really hard to challenge decisions from a student's association point of view, because we are funded by the college, we are a department of the college, so it can be really difficult to disagree. Also, when you disagree with the college, it can break down those relationships that you have built with senior staff, and when you know that they are funded by your student's association and the work that you do, it is really difficult to completely disagree. I recently visited 4th Valley College, and they have an arm's limb funding model, and then, of course, there is Edinburgh College, which is completely independent of the student's association. I think that there has to be some degree of independence, because it is really difficult to be part of the college and say that we do not agree with you, knowing that your funding and your relationships with staff depends on that. I think that it is important to note that the college student's associations are established in very different ways across the country. Edinburgh College is unique in that it has a student's association, which is a separate charity, and it has staff that run the student's association in an autonomous way. We are still funded by the college, but in a slightly more separated way, which gives us an opportunity to be more autonomous and challenge some of those decisions and have our own strategic plan, which can complement or diverge from the college. Not all colleges have that and some colleges. I would not want to speak on their behalf, but I know from experience that some college student's associations would struggle in that situation, as Christian has explained, because of that nature of being essentially a department within the college. Alex, do you want to come in? From a student point of view, it is quite difficult at the moment, because there is not a lot of face-to-face contact. E-mails do not portray emotion, so you have no way of showing how disappointed or angry or upset you are at things, and the sheer lack of face-to-face times is difficult. I am a staff member in the college. However, I am supported to have discussions and difficult discussions with the principal and the executive leadership team on areas that the student association disagrees on, and they are absolutely open to listening to their view and having open discussions. It is about those partnerships and relationships that are really important, and how you respect each other and how you support each other with your different priorities. That comes to your point. If you are just first in the door, as a student, it can be quite daunting, is it not? I think that that is something that is challenging for us all. I am sorry, Ruth. I am keen to hear from Heather, because in the Highlands it is quite a big spread. You spoke about the number of leaders that you had to engage with, so I would be interested to hear your perspective on that. From a personal perspective, I engage mostly with the vice chancellor and the senior management team, who are fantastic in listening to us. They want to open an honest conversation, and they are not afraid to be open and honest with us as well, which is nice. If I am having a one-to-one with Todd, I do not feel that there are any barriers. It is just an honest conversation. When it comes to individual principals, I am not sure how good I am to comment. I would have to go back and speak to my local officers, but I think that it varies depending on attitude. There are some principals that come to mind that are fantastic, and there are others that I can imagine that would be a bit more barriers and challenging yet. I guess that it does vary, but the regional team above all is absolutely fantastic, and I cannot fault them. I think that John Scott wants to come in as well on that, Ruth. I think that I will come back to talk about the importance. My point of view in challenging senior management or challenging principals is that staff are really important within the SA, because we have to build up their relationships over the years. Some student presidents are only here for two years at a maximum, but building that relationship as a staff member and the management knowing that our job, as Nicole said, is to make sure that we have the conversations that are sometimes difficult. Just recently, when we were asking for the two-year process for the students to be in a playback position for two years, there were difficult conversations, especially around about the funding to go on forward, and whether the conversations are difficult or not, we still have to have the conversations, and the staff support within that having to push in presence to ask the questions. Now, staff will know that we are not asking them, I believe, building their relationships, they will know that we are not asking them to be challenging or being difficult to ask the questions. It is what has to be right, because it is the right thing to ask at that time, so support student associations are sabbaticals. From a staff point of view, we have to know that I take questions that are difficult to ask, but we are employed to do that and support student associations, especially going forward. Michael Marra I find this line of questioning and discussion actually really useful in terms of understanding the dynamics that are working. Obviously, colleges are facing a really significant set of challenges at the moment in the current budget year and also the spending review that is being carried out by the Scottish Government, which is looking at 8 per cent real terms cut in funding for colleges. I just wondered whether student officers have been involved in discussions with boards of management around those challenges in recent weeks. Is that something that you have begun to talk about? I know that locally in Dundee, my home city, there are discussions about closure of courses and other issues because of the need to close that, what the principal has described as a black hole in the finances. Is that the kind of thing that you have been involved in so far that has come across your desk? We have been involved in discussions about that there might be staff cuts—well, there will be, not there might be—and restrictions on funding. For example, at the moment, we have three members of staff who work solely on mental health and wellbeing services in the college who are funded by an SFC grant. Once that goes, they are not going to stay. Let's be honest, we are in a mental health crisis. We need those members of staff, so that is really worrying. That and reduction in staff at the time where colleges are supposed to be at the heart of the pandemic recovery, it is quite a worrying thing. We are aware and we are involved and we know what is going on, but it is less of a discussion more that this needs to happen sort of thing and more of an understanding from us than anything else. Any other, Heather? Is that something that you have been involved in? On a regional level, definitely. Those have come across my table. If they are brought to the local boards of management, I know that they will come to my local officers as well because they are involved in all the discussions. They will see the papers, so we have been pretty involved and have been able to ask questions etc. It is more on that basis than a discussion with you about, I mean, I suppose that Kirsten is making that forgetting voice around students' heard in terms of at least here, in the college as well, around if there is a provision that we think we need to keep. Is it more at that design level or is it here is a bit of a complete plan that we are going to develop and then obviously you make representations on that basis or is it earlier stage? So far in my experience, we haven't quite got to the what are we going to do about it, we're sort of just dealing with it if this happens, that's the kind of way it's been at the minute. But once it comes to that, I will be able to input and my officers will be able to input as well. Nicole? Yes, our officers have been involved in these kind of discussions as well, and they are looking at forward planning. Our college obviously is impacted as well as across the sector with regards to student mental health and wellbeing, and I guess our college are just looking at initiatives that we can take in house to help to support students, but funding is always necessary, it allows that additional layer. For example, we were running Keep Yourself Well workshops throughout the summer, which are supporting students before they actually start college, so without that funding that makes that not possible. However, we are looking at, as I said, a different initiatives like mental health support for men that can run throughout the college, supported by college staff, but funding is really necessary. I think that you wanted to come in as well on this. Two parts of that one is that, in terms of student officers being involved, certainly from my experience, that student officers have been involved in those conversations both at an immediate level of what happens right now, but also how is this going to pan out for the next few years. I think that that is probably a good example of how the board of management has engaged with those officers and made sure that they feel part of that decision-making process. It is always really challenging because a lot of the initial cuts funding, which is ending essentially rather than something that is being completely taken away, are going to be front-line services for students. I think that it is difficult for current officers to actually get their heads around exactly what that is going to look like going forward, so I think that in the next couple of years supporting those student officers to be involved in those conversations and ensure that the services are correct for current students is going to be vital. Michael? That is what we hear from Mary from Amy and Alex, just in terms of the same kind of question around involvement in those discussions. Alex, who is that first? I personally have not had any involvement at all. There has been nothing to come through our student association for it. Okay, thanks. Amy, sorry. Over to you now. No, that's okay. We have had discussions on that, and it has come across our team where we have discussed that team about the implications for us as the SA. We have also been able to open a channel when news of cuts get to student level and that they are able to have that sort of consultation and say so in what might happen when it comes down to what is happening in their specific department. I just wanted to pick up on a point that was made about the staff member being a key tool and being able to challenge decisions. We still have the one-year term at the New Angus College, so there is a very, very quick turnaround of sabbatical officers. Having that staff member, which we think we have had for four and a half years now, has been influential in where we have been able to grow and become more sustainable. We bring in Graham Day, who is online, and he can ask some questions to the table today. Thank you, Graham. Over to you. I apologise to the panel for not being present in person. I want to go back a little bit and look at the challenges that are faced by student officers and staff in relation to colleges post regionalisation. Obviously, with regionalisation, we saw college mergers and multiple campuses come under the same umbrella. I want to explore, if I may, the challenges that that can pose. I do not mean specifically in terms of the time that the relevant people have to dedicate to each campus, but more from the point of view of—I think that John talked about—different cultures in different colleges or campuses. Travel issues arise where courses are concentrated in one particular location, which presents difficulties. Particularly where there is a mix of urban and rural campuses—yes, I am being parochial when I represent Angus—I want to tease out a bit more about that, if we can. Maybe Amy is the starting point here. We will send it to Amy first, but if not, Christian is happy to contribute as well. Over to you, Amy. Thank you. I live very rural at myself. I found that getting to campus, we have our courses spread across most of them, but there are a couple of courses that are only available at our growth or only available in Dundee. It is how we make sure that we are supporting the students that might have to travel 50, 60 or 70 miles from Stonehaven on the bus services right through Dundee and making sure that they have plans in place to make them feel like they have to be five minutes late every day because of the bus times. They have had that conversation with their lecturers and they are not penalised because that is the first bus. I feel that when it comes to digital or online learning, my Wi-Fi signal is held up today, but that was a barrier for a lot of our students with lack of devices or lack of sufficient Wi-Fi to be able to engage in their learning properly. That has taken a lot of a time to unpack, but we are thankful that we have been able to get our hands on external funding to get devices or to have those conversations where the students do not feel like they are limited in any way. I have a couple of points to make in response to the question about culture. Because Nescol has three very different full campuses and very different learning centres, we do not really have a Nescol culture. We have a culture at each campus, but we do not really have a culture across the region. I do not think that that will ever be the case. Our students are so different. Staff members travel from each campus, and student associations travel from each campus. We try to have cross-campus events, but I do not think that it is ever going to work. Our students are so different, and I am sure that it is very similar, for example at Hyza. In terms of availability of courses, some of our courses, at least pre-pandemic and now, because online it is a little bit different, but they would happen at the city campus in Aberdeen, and students from Fraserborough, for example, would attend virtually. They are not getting the same quality of experience as the students in Aberdeen. There were also problems with Wi-Fi and things like that. A lot of those classes are still occurring online, although there is hope to go back to the previous model at least somewhat. The fact is now that the students are getting the same experience, but some of those students are being taught by lecturers who live over an hour's drive away. The only way they can talk to them is by email. I can go and speak to my lecturers on campus because I am at the city campus, so they are not getting the same provision. Of course, availability was something that I wanted to touch upon as well. If you live in Glasgow, for example, and you want to take a course, you have three different colleges to choose from. If you want to take a course in Aberdeen, you have one college to choose from. If you live in Banff, you have one college to choose from, and it might only be available in Aberdeen. I think that there is certainly not an equal opportunity across the country. In terms of what has happened in the pandemic, one of the things that I have looked at this year is the benefits of hybrid learning. I think that somebody else touched upon it. I cannot quite remember who, but one of the benefits that we have discovered is that some students are able to attend college because they can learn online, and they would never have been able to do that before. That is something that I have worked on this year to try to encourage Nascol to keep that on board, at least to have an option to attend some classes virtually that you would not otherwise be able to attend much like they do in universities. I think that is something that we really need to keep going forward. I have a question that follows on nicely from that question. There might be other panel members who want to respond to Graham's questions, perhaps Heather, but in terms of that online and that hybrid model, it is great to hear that it is a benefit to some of your students, but I have also got concerns that it has been driven perhaps by the colleges, and it is not at the best interests of the students, and they are losing out on that campus experience. I was interested in your views of what you think in terms of how that has been driven and presented as how we are going to learn going forward. When we talk about culture at UHI, we have 13 different cultures, because we have 13 different campuses in a vast amount of locations. On top of that, there are over 70 learning centres. We stretch from Shetland all the way down to Campbelltown, so when we talk about culture, it is quite vast at UHI, but I enjoy that. That is a beautiful part of UHI. When it comes to course availability, we are currently going through a curriculum review. I know that a vast amount of courses are available at pretty much every campus, but we have campuses that specialise in different topics. We have been doing a hybrid model since before the pandemic, so I know that there are VC learning suites in a lot of campuses, so people could come in to a class, but we could also attend online. We have a mixed response from students. Some students love that because they have such busy lives or they live so rurally. Some students want that, but they also want a social experience. Wifi again is also an issue. There is a chat around if you should have your camera on during lectures, and some of our students just cannot because of their wi-fi quality. They have to have their camera off, otherwise they keep getting kicked out of their call. For example, infrastructure is a big thing in the highlands and islands. As we know, we have students that take ferries to get to their class every day. It is vastly complex with its own unique set of issues, but it is what it is. Can we go to Kirsten and then Alex to respond to the hybrid? I think that there is a belief between students and lecturers at the college that it is driven by the college. I think that there is an aspect of that. I mean, some of the courses have been delivered in online lectures to over 100 students at a time, which would obviously never have happened before the pandemic. If it had, there would have been enough time for that lecture to meet one-on-one with those students. That just is not the case now, whether it be via teams or whether it be in person. I think that it is a fine line between making sure that online availability, whether it be hybrid or fully online, is provided in a way that it benefits the students and staff but does not overload the lecturers, because if it overloads the lecturers, it undermines the shouldn't experience. Heather's point about cameras is that that is an issue at Nescall as well. Some lecturers have said that if you do not put your camera on, we are not going to mark you here, which is really not okay. It comes down to privacy, especially. I know that there is the Wi-Fi issue and that is by the by, but some people have things going on in the background. You would not invite your lecturer into your home generally, so you should not have to have your camera on. Another thing is that we have to accept that a number of students who are coming to college are coming as a last chance to loon and might have other things going on in the background that would restrict them from turning on their camera and therefore attending the lecture or whatever it is that they are attending online. I am a SWAP student, so most of the people in my class, for example, were fairly grown up, we have all got families. Luckily at Fife College there is quite a good scheme where they were giving us laptops and netbooks and things, but we had technical issues all the way through the college year. There has been a green screen issue with Google Chromebooks, so we have struggled with that. Some students have come out of lessons because they cannot see the whiteboard that is being shared, etc. For me personally, the whole driven issue has been tutor led, or lecturer led that they have decided. Some lecturers have said, I am not going to teach online, as soon as they are able to, which meant that on some occasions we were travelling in for an hour's lecture or a two hour lecture. I personally suffer from mental health issues. The idea of getting on public transport absolutely terrifies me for lots of different reasons, so I missed a lot of lectures when I had vehicle trouble. I personally think that the options should be there for the student, whether they want online or should be an either or, not you must do one or you must do the other. It would just open up the whole concept and make it so much more available for so many more people. John O'Hara Just to add in that process, when we were working online in the pandemic, the help from Sparse at that time using the toolkit for learning engagement to be able to gather that evidence during that time for students were working from home, which was really crucial for us at New College Lanarkshire, because towards the end of that, the evidence that came out of that gathered that evidence during that time from students and reps, and the Student Association were a huge party of that. There was a mid-length bar, so there were HN students who were really positive about online learning and they could really learn and they were really up for it. Actually, when you look at lower courses, some of the most practical courses were really about and you can see the point where they had to learn practically to be able to complete their course, so that some of them could make a part of the students that couldn't work on each other face to face, but doing that course online hybrid just wouldn't be able to go forward from them to complete their course. We really did have a really positive look at some of the online courses going forward, and I think that that evidence is really good to be able to plan for us to be able to help going forward, but I think that we need to look down into the actual courses that we deliver, hybrid, while they work or do not work, especially practical courses, which a lot of FE colleges have put a lot of practical courses going forward. The HN courses definitely and the ones that don't have less practical element to them definitely work better for us as a college. Thank you, John, and then over to Amy on-line as well, thank you. I think that with our students, like John said, it's been a bit of a mixed bag of who's drive but online learning and who's struggled. I was a hairdresser and student, so that is quick tricky to learn over a team's call. I think that what we've been doing is looking at it at that department level and seeing what has worked. We should be the students about it. Is there aspects of that that aren't, for example, the hairdressing course that could stay online, maybe the Orffini class, but that it gets both together in the practical learning, but I think that it is going to be that flexibility of the delivery that will help. I don't think that we've not got it set as 80 per cent on campus. There's not a number. It is very fluid from department to department. The one thing that's been said is that they'll all have an opportunity to come on to campus if they want. I know a few classrooms have been set up for that very sort of hybrid in and out sort of learning where people can call in as and when they need to. I think that that flexibility will be key to help those with, as the other person said, about mental health, about travel and that security of going forward. Students enjoy being on campus. We've had a majority of our students on campus, but we deliver a lot of practical courses. In addition to that, our FE students need the social interaction in order to build relationships with peers and their lecturers and feel supported with their mental health academically and, as I said, in addition to peer support. For us, it's really important that the colleges are looking at individual courses and seeing the needs of their students and really listening to that. I feel that our college has done that. We conducted a survey in the student association and we got a real mixed response. We had a lot of student carers. We had a lot of students, as I said, that have poor mental health problems, wi-fi issues, but like to be on campus. It's really important that it's course led and understanding the students that are participating in those courses and their needs individually. I think that we've had two very large challenges for students at Scotland's colleges. One is digital access and digital poverty. I know that that's something that's been talked about a lot over the pandemic, but it is a real challenge for students. It's not necessarily an answer just to put a course online because it does throw up other challenges that need to be planned and support needs to be put in place. That's not always the case from day one. The other is travel. More generally, we talked about different campuses and travelling in and out, as Alex said, for one-hour classes and then the rest were online. Travel has always been a challenge for students, regardless of the pandemic. It has been a barrier to education. Even in my own institution, being a city institution, travel from one local authority to another for a specific course is a challenge. We have been lucky in the student association that we have been able to access funding to run a project around active travel and supporting students to access the best forms of public transport, etc. Unfortunately, that funding has come to an end and we will be able to do that any longer, but supporting students to get to the course that they need to do is definitely a challenge. I think that digital can solve some of those problems, particularly when we look at the demographic of students that are coming through. A lot of students are coming back into education and a lot of students have family commitments and caring responsibilities, so it is about making sure that those students in that particular course get their voices heard and how that is delivered and make sure that it works for everybody. There have been a few very good points raised and it led me back to something that I have done this year. I conducted a survey with the student body about how they would like to learn. It was really important that we had to ask and we also followed on from that with focus groups. A lot of the younger students have said exactly what McColl said, that they need to be there for that social aspect. 47 per cent of the student surveyed said that they struggled with their mental health learning online, but we also had 34 per cent of the students who said that they preferred to learn online and 55 per cent who said that they preferred that flexible mixed approach. Lots of students have said that it is easier for childcare, it is easier if they have caring responsibilities, they cannot afford to come to college, we are in a cost of living crisis. Most students have said that the focus groups are just being collated now but what people have said is that they want a mixed approach, they want the opportunity to have both because they find it so much easier to manage other responsibilities. In terms of technology, most of our students have said that that is not an issue although there is still a percentage of that that is difficult, but the college really supports them and the only issues that they have are on an operational level where things do not go quite to plan. In terms of being able to access online classes but also have the option to learn on campus, that is really what our students want. Our sample for a students association survey was quite big, it was 216 people but we have 21,000 students. We need support from perhaps the college or someone else needs to run the survey so we need to make sure that we are on a higher level because that represents a very small sample although a big sample for a students association survey would be useful to do that again on a regional or national level. Michael, you have got some questions. I think that this area is really interesting in terms of the next phase post-pandemic and balancing those models and it sounds like it is something that you are all struggling with or actually addressing and engaging with really proactively, which is great to hear. I suppose that I wonder about how attractive going to campus is. I mean, Al has mentioned how challenging that can be in terms of travel costs and so on. Are the kind of campuses that you are running, are they places that people want to be and is that work that is being done? You mean that college principals tell me that there is no capital budget, they have no money to do the transition to net zero, they are worried about, again, locally to me, Kingsway campus in Dundee, the garden has had a lot of money spent on it but there is a kind of a worry that actually are these places that we can attract people to, is there a gym that people can use, is there a childcare facility, is that a job that colleges have to do more of to attract people back and make these places they want to go? Alex, would you be able to kick that off? Partially, yes, I would be attracted to, I am at Carnegie campus, so there is no gym, there is childcare facilities but it is for young children, as I said, I am a swap student, so most of us are parents, so at half the month I am a single father, I have got three kids, so I have to get my kids to school as well as get myself to college, so the flexible learning is good for that. Yes, I do enjoy being on campus, I enjoy spending the time with my peers, actually face to face with the lecturers, but at the same time again when we are mental health issues, a busy campus for me is a terrifying prospect, so the flexibility is fantastic. I can pick whether, when I think the college is going to be busy, if it is not busy, I can find a quiet place to go and sit and do the lecture online, so I am not stuck, I am free, taking a work to my own abilities, if that makes sense. Thank you, Alex, and Nicole, you wanted to come on this. Yes, I was going to say that it is really important and our college has actually redeveloped to the whole bottom floor of the main building to make it more student friendly due to student feedback. We offer all students free lunch and free breakfast when they come on to campus. We have a free gym for students and we are redeveloping an outdoor space for students as well, and I think that all of those elements are really important for an overall community feel and for them to actually create relationships. I think that that is a big part of students actually coming back to college is making friends and feeling part of a community before they actually go into employment. Colleges have to look at all of those elements, it is not just about the course, which is really important, it is about ensuring that our colleges have placements for students so that they are employment ready, it is about having the facilities in our college that support our students while they are there, it is about having staff support that can help the person and look for a real person-centred approach, so colleges are saying that we actually care about you as a person, we care about your journey and we care about you and where you are going to go and progress on. Alice, you said that you wanted to come on this. I think that there is a good example at Edinburgh College of the social care course, which again was delivered across four campuses, but it is being consolidated broadly within one campus with some at a second campus, but it is about the facilities that those students can access when they are on campus, so it is about what is the quality of student experience when you are on campus and you are just coming to sit in a completely anonymous classroom what you could do anywhere, or are you accessing expert facilities? The social care course, the department that has been developed at site hill is incredible, it is award winning and all the rest of it, and it is great for students to be able to have that practical element within their course rather than just totally theory-based in a classroom and then punt it out to placement. They have that in-between bit where they can actually experience what it is like and learn mistakes through that process before they go out on placement and make them more confident, but what you have hit on again is those kind of wraparound things, unfortunately are the things that are first to go whenever budgets are tight, so it is that, although it is great to see investment in facilities for specific courses, facilities for social spaces and access to those sorts of things are not necessarily a priority for all colleges at the minute because of the budget constraints and that is definitely an issue and it is something that we feel as a student association that we have to kind of plug that gap and provide those activities. Heather wants to come in and then John online, okay? Thank you, Heather. Yeah, I think for us it's, it's, we have campuses that have amazing facilities top of the range are larger ones, but we also have much smaller campuses that are essentially offices and some classrooms and you don't have anything else. The big thing we've been hearing from our students is they want that flexibility. What's key for them is to feel welcome on campus. I had a student tell me just yesterday that they're entirely online course, they didn't feel welcome at their own campus and they had to find their own way to feel that essentially. They had to force themselves to come on campus to go to the library to meet people in order to feel welcome. So I think that there's an issue around that. If we have just online, do our students feel part of the community, do they feel welcome at their own campus and I think whilst flexibility is key we still need to address that social aspect that people want to see other people and be around other people and that's been really key for our students. Thank you, Heather. John. I just want to make a point of just talking about how attractive the services are to students and when they're on campus. Over the years that I've worked in education, I think, we're aware that the student that comes through the door now has more complex needs than before. So their services, their wraparound services are really, really important and I think the wraparound services are more attractive to students than actually a classroom or something else within the college, especially in my experience. So when we're talking about cuts and the future, we need to really make sure that we're putting that at the forefront, that we have the wraparound services and that we're looking at the needs of the students going forward. Lastly, Amy wants to come in on this as well. Over to you, Amy, online. Thank you. What I feel is a big part of making the campus attractive is that the people that are there, the people that are there, it's being said that they're going to welcome people, that more informal wraparound, whether it's lunchtime clubs, breakfast clubs, so much happens at college that is out with the classroom and out with that academic sort of space. And I think that that is a huge part of the whole college experience for our students. So whether it's during the pandemic we had, when we were allowed, we were bringing the opportunity for baller campuses to come together, whether it was for picnics or walks and things like that. And it was creating that across the board culture where I think that are the cross board community, which I think it wasn't necessarily a counselling session or a wellbeing session, it was just a social opportunity where people got to meet face to face, have experiences together, make those friendships and those relationships. And that's something that we're keen to continue and just to echo what other people said. It's a big worry of where the cuts are going to affect that because we know that that's probably going to be the resources that will be cut first. Thank you, Amy. And Oliver Mundell on this topic. Thank you, convener. Heather touched upon it in terms of the consistency of investment across smaller campuses. That was something that I was interested in, whether it was uniform or whether smaller campuses tend to miss out. There was a second question particularly on those smaller campuses, whether the staff are always there. Because that's something that I've had in feedback, is that it's not just about students being on campus with the kind of move towards more kind of digital delivery that it's smaller campuses. It's often not teaching staff present or being done from other sites. Is that something that you've experienced? I think it very much does vary across the region. One of our campuses, for example, has never reopened, is still shut entirely and it's entirely online. Having been around a few of them, I think you tend to find that the support staff are there. Lectures, I'm not entirely sure, I would have to come back to you on that one. I think the larger campuses are feeling that they are quite busy again, but the smaller campuses are still feeling a bit empty and a bit quiet, but that could be lower student numbers, for example. It does vary vastly across the region. Is that something that other people have experienced as well? I was interested in the staff point, whether or not teaching staff are present on smaller campuses or whether there's now a sort of move to beam people in to teach. If you don't have any experience of that, you don't. No, I don't think I have a little task. Anyone else? That's okay. I'm just checking the chat. Amy, was that you wanted to come in on that point? Yes, it is. Sorry, yeah, two hours in a row. Crack on, Amy. Sorry. Sorry. So, I think that Garding is one of our biggest campuses, but it's also our campus that had the more theoretical academic-based subjects. To start with, we did find that there were less people coming back on campus because they were still all doing remote delivery, whereas Kingsway and Arbroath are slightly smaller campuses, but they are all very, very practical-based subjects, so they did get the buzz about campus back a lot quicker. I still think that Garding is slightly quieter because of that as well, coming back now. Stephanie Callahan has a point on this matter to bring up as well. Just to re-supplement your question, I'm going back to what we were talking about in the first place there. It seems to be that for students that that wraparine support and the wellbeing seems to be a real key priority for students, that seems to be what they're really looking for. So, going back to students' views of having parity, what power have they got? Have students then got the power to insist that boards and principals make this a priority for their colleges? Do they have the power to do that? Thanks. Michael Weed, are you in a position to answer that? I would say absolutely. Our officers have taken that to the board and they've been really clear on their discussions and their feedback from students. Our college is making it a priority, as I said. Funding, obviously, is really helpful and there is now a lack of funding. Funding is stopping in some aspects, but they are really keen to draw resources from other areas of the college in order to support students because it's really necessary. There's a lot of students that have been impacted by the pandemic, by lots of jobs and lots of other things that are going on in their lives. I think that it's really important that colleges do understand that and ours definitely does. Whether it's internally putting on support mechanisms, however, funding allows a wider expanse of that and we can do bigger, better things with more funding. I think that Nescoll really have tried to invest in improving the spaces that we have available for students on campus. As students come back, we are saying that they appreciate music on campus, TVs and nice places to sit. Although our campus is especially Aberdeen City campus, it doesn't have a lot of room for social spaces, so it's really difficult to create that. However, the college is really investing in improving social spaces and improving wellbeing services. However, as I said before, the staff that we have there who are supporting students with mental health or wellbeing problems and the counselling service that we have, I'm not sure if that's going to continue when the SFC grant goes. I think that that's a real concern for the college and for student associations. Thank you, Kirsten John. On line, over to you, John Hara. I think that the student associations are especially in new calls to answer, we're really confident in bringing up that agenda. I think that a huge part of working on the student mental health agreement, along with the college as well, allows us to be able to better put in place what the colleges are at, what the students are actually needing. Working together in partnership with that student mental health agreement is our way forward to see what the students need and what the college is going to do to be able to support that student. Thank you very much for that. Now we're going to move to some questions that Bob Doris is looking to ask the panel. I'm really interested in hearing about the varied experiences across the country, but one of the aims of regionalisation was to make it easier and more straightforward for young people to move from school into the college sector, being a HND, HND, HND, or foundation apprenticeship, for example, but also from colleges into universities, whether that is moving straight to second year at university and are articulated from college to university. I suppose I want to know whether the student experience has been that things have improved in recent years in relation to both those things, and just finally, convener, all so that there's an equality of status between if you're at college you do a HND because that's what you need, but it's not a self-fulfilling province, you have to go to university, but you go for the HND or you go for the apprenticeship, so that equality of status across various courses as well as any comments on that at all, convener, would be very welcome. Thank you, Bob. I think that Nicole would like to kick off this one. Our college has increased the articulation routes and we now have more than 200 articulation routes and agreements with universities, which has been fantastic and a real increase with that. In addition to that, we work very closely with our local schools. We might be slightly different from the bigger college, we're a medium-sized college, we're in one region, we're not split across different campuses, so we can really build and develop those relationships across the sector and support our students. We work with organisations like Skills Development Scotland to provide careers advice for students who are coming in, and they have one-to-one support for them if they change their mind mid-course or if they don't want to go to university, and obviously we work with employers and we work with the SWAP programmes as well, so it's really, really important that we look across the wider community and understand the needs of our employers and what's available with regards to further education and higher education and how we can interlink with schools as well. I think that, Al, you want to come in on this as well. Thank you, convener. I think that three things on this. One is from Edinburgh College's perspective, the schools college partnership programme in Edinburgh College has really boomed over the last few years, and particularly for Edinburgh College, that means the college is then working with three different local authority areas, so three different groups of schools within that. The pupils getting the experience of being on campus and learning subjects that they wouldn't have access to through school, so that's been a real success. The other area, I suppose at the other end, is, as Alex has attested to the SWAP programme, students who sign up to a programme who they know will end up in university, has been very positive. Edinburgh College, let me get this marketing speak correct, is the biggest single provider of students to Edinburgh's universities, so there's a huge proportion of our students go on to universities in Edinburgh, but also the HND level courses, the retention and attainment levels within those courses is really high and it's been consistent for a long time, so I think that proves that, like you were saying, that people come to college to achieve an HND in its own right and it is seen as a qualification that can help them in their career. So certainly from our point of view, those three things would be very positive. We also have Alex over what's coming on this. SWAP students, there's quite a high proportion of us go on to university. Every one of my classmates has achieved a university place that they've been looking for. Like myself, I've come back into education after 20 odd years, so I've struggled a little bit to get back into the way. The advice that was given to me and the help that's been given to me, the lecturers that have been set up by the guidance staff and the tutors have been fantastic. It's definitely led by, for us, I think that the Carnegie campus is quite a small campus, so it's quite a student led, but it's been a fantastic experience from start to finish. If there's any other comments on that, it would be welcome, but I'd one final thing I'd wanted to ask about, because another aspect of regionalisation was that we wanted to make sure that, when you have a consolidated college but a number of campuses, that that community outreach work to attract learners that wouldn't normally go to college, so I'm not talking about those at school now, but those in the wider community that otherwise haven't had a conventional learning pathway, would be the jargon, I suppose, hard to reach groups about other jargon, but what work is on going and has that been enhanced in any way by college regionalisation? How do we reach those students who wouldn't normally get into learning? Because that's, of course, what we're further education sectors there for as well, so any comments on that would be really welcome. I was going to say that we've created in our college programmes, like the Trust project, which is looking for students that maybe have come from a trauma-informed background and not quite ready to go into mainstream full-time education courses, and they're brought in. In addition to that, we have skills boost courses and the young person's guarantee. So, again, it's reaching out across our community or local community for students that maybe wouldn't come through school routes naturally or wouldn't apply to college and look at colleges for everybody. Even if you don't feel ready to do a full-time course, there's a stepping stone into college and come along and find out about it. Thank you very much. I've got Amy Online that wants to come in as well on this. Thank you. I just answered a couple of questions from before, Bob, as well. We've got our senior phase programme that's run through our academic development team. Just recently and on-going, we've got the S3 Open Days, who will be our future senior phase. They're coming in for Taster sessions now, before their choices need to be made, getting a good experience on campus, again getting to meet the different support teams that they'll have available to them when they're on campus as a student. So it's really bolstering that community feel and that support from the get-go. I don't know the number for how many articulation routes they've got. I've got Covid at the minute, so I've got a bit of brain fog, but I do know that they have increased and we have a number of the swap courses as well. When it comes to the equality of the status, we promote that there's no wrong path, whether it's linear, whether it's a bit of a roller coaster. If you're coming in to do something that's going to progress you as a person, your confidence, your learning, then you do what you need to do, whether that actually stops it, you know that HE or FE, whatever you need to do as a person. When it comes to reaching those most disengaged online engagement teams, again the name of the projects lost at my head, but they go into community groups, young mum groups, carers groups to really reach those people and give them that opportunity, that point of contact to plant that seed about education and coming back and they're fully supported in that role and I know that they've been really successful across the board. Thank you and Kirsten, you want to comment on this? In relation to your first point, we, like Hemie at Dundee and Angus, have, at Nescal, we have taster sessions on at the moment for school pupils to come and to experience college and to see what it's like. From a personal level I think we have a culture problem in Scotland where college is seen as second route to university and it's seen as if you go to college it's not equal status to university and actually I think all of us would agree that college is a great place to go and a lot of students flourish at college where they wouldn't maybe in school fifth and sixth year or at university. They might think they're ready in grades but they might not be ready in other ways and college is a really supportive environment for those kind of students and I think we have a number of articulation routes and the universities come to the college and they say this is what we've got to offer, this is how we can support you as a college student and I think the college really helps to create that equality of status and to remind college students that you're just as able as the university students and so do the teams at the universities who help with the widening participation. In relation to your question about other students, I don't think that university and college experiences are open to everyone. Funding for SAS hasn't increased for a number of years and I think a number of people feel that they can't afford to go to university or college and they have to, in terms of articulation, I mean and you know they think well I'll have to work full time alongside it, I can't afford it, I've got kids, I've got this, I've got that, so college isn't open to everyone and we have to be aware of the fact that we're in a cost of living crisis and if people are going to choose college or whatever they need more money. Thank you, I'm looking around if anyone else wants to come in on that. Are you okay now, Bob? Are you okay? Do you want to say anything else, Alex? Just an issue on funding. I came from full-time work into education and was given some not very good advice at the start so as a result the right funding wasn't in place for myself, I wasn't getting enough funding, essentially I was getting £240 a month to live off 75 per cent of my rent was being paid as a result because I live in a private let, as a result I'm now in quite a lot of substantial debt, luckily for myself I met ex-military so a lot of the military charities are now helping me out but for somebody coming off the street off a full-time education or sort of off a full-time employment and a full-time education there's not a lot of advice and there's not a lot of funding available for us, for example you can't get a bursary if you're claiming universal credit, you can't claim universal credit if you're a full-time student, it's very complicated and I think that really needs to be addressed. Thank you Alex and Cogab, you've got some supplementaries on this. Yes, thank you convener. I'm interested in the parity of esteem for all the different courses and things and it was good to hear about the widening participation routes. As part of that I suppose if a student is doing and choosing any of those routes, how well prepared do you think the students fail to take the next steps, whatever that may be for them? So I think you've sort of demonstrated that by and large they're able to sort of like choose different routes but how well prepared do they actually feel for that, are they nervous, are they apprehensive, are they supported, do they get the advice from the right people at the right time, is there anyone that would particularly... I think we have Alex nodding to me that he might be able to go first on this one. As a student yes, at Fife College the advice is there, the help's there from the tutors, I've been really fortunate with the tutors, I've had a fantastic, and they've been able to say yes, that's the path for you, no that's not the path for you and suggest other routes if it's not necessarily what they think you're capable of doing. So yeah, the help and advice is there. Thank you Alex and Al, and then Nicole. Very quickly just I think that one thing that colleges in Scotland are particularly good at is links with industry and I think having that work-based learning approach and having the ability to give students a taste of what their working life could look like is essential for a lot of our students and it helps them in the next step to make those decisions whether they need further qualifications or they can access direct employment after that. Thank you, and Nicole? Yes, I agree with Alan, we're exactly the same and we've just done a survey as a student association to our students, we had a thousand responses and 78% of them said that they felt ready for the next progression routes and that they were able to speak to their staff and their staff had spoken to them at the beginning of the course and obviously through their course. I think it's really necessary to have a person-centred approach as well because people can change their minds halfway through, they maybe don't want to do that type of career or they've gone in a placement that they've not enjoyed. So I think it's really important that they have that relationship with not just their lecturer but with the college and that they know the facilities are available like the career support, like the student advice that they can access any time should they change their mind or should they wish just to know what steps are next. Again, I also think that they take into consideration the money side of things, you know, can they afford to progress on to university, can they afford to go on to the next course and what does the college do to support them and I think it's really really important that they have that relationship and communication and staff, support staff are there to support their journey while they're at college. Thank you, Nicole. And Amy, online. Amy Monks. So just from my personal experience I do feel like I was very supported in my next steps. There was obviously with it being a practical course and missed out on so much practical learning. There was still nurse there but what I think has been amazing from my experience of people in my class was that the lectured staff are still there for us. If there is any questions or you know we've made a little bit of advice we still feel really comfortable and confident to go back and say can you just remind me of this aspect or or anything like that and I do think you know coming back out of that pandemic having the work experience back in the industry talks and like we said there the careers and that sort of business gateway all those those sort of external resources as well that could be pulled upon really really support our learners for you know whether they're gone on to university or like myself and a lot of practical courses it stops at college or gone you know out into the workplace. Heather. Thank you. Yeah I think at UHI we have a fantastic careers team who put on skills workshops every student has there's variations of the name but a personal academic tutor that they can go to for advice. I think being unique as well in the in the case that we are tertiary you don't necessarily have to leave UHI to take that next step you could what I love about UHI personally is you can enter with no qualifications whatsoever and you could leave with a PhD so I think it does look slightly different for students especially if you are somewhere rural or on an island for example you could go right the way through UHI so moving on to degree level for example might be slightly less intimidating because you don't have to leave you've got the same people around you that whole time you've got the same career service the same support staff available to you and I think that makes it potentially slightly easier. Thank you Heather and Kirsten. Going back to the party of experience question I think the students who are progressing to university feel very well prepared the universities are there from the very beginning they're there the open days they come and speak to the students they're there workshops that the student advice team runs skills workshops to help you write UCAS statements and things like that. I think our students who are studying practical courses specifically things like construction engineering I don't think they feel as well prepared although I think part of my experience well all of my experience comes from Covid years so I think that's part of the problem they don't feel like they have enough practical experience and but also a number of our students have said they don't feel enough they have enough support to get an apprenticeship or move to further work and so I think we do enough for for kind of uni students I think our students progressing to uni I think we need to do a bit more for students who are going on to a different kind of work. Thank you. I'll just explore that a bit further then so what suggestions could be given the students that you consult with I was going to come on to the ones that may slip through the net because you know we want to be there for everybody leave nobody behind so what do colleges do to make sure that they catch everybody and the ones that don't feel so prepared do they feel that they can ask for that extra support are the colleges able to respond to that? Our student advice team like I say runs employer workshops and skills workshops and students also have like a notice board where they can see the apprenticeships that are available a student did suggest to me perhaps it would be a good idea to have employers come along to their classes so they could see what you know what they do and how they do it I also this particular student said to me that sometimes the students get picked for apprenticeships are cherry picked so perhaps that would be a good way to say who was capable. There was something else I wanted to add but it slipped my mind. You can come back you can always send it in by email to us later if it comes to you. We work with a number of employers that come in and visit classes and they develop relationships with students in addition to that they're placements as well and I think the key thing is that we listen to students so if for example they don't turn up at class once or twice you know we've got a team that will follow that up we want to find out what's the problem is how we can support them as we go along so that we can nurture students and really help to support them with our journey. I was going to say as well like a lot of the students had enjoyed the flexibility of Covid with regards to SQA with continuous assessment and open book and we're just hoping that that flexibility will kind of progress on as you know Covid years are are non. Can we move on now to some questions from Oliver Mundell? It was just to go back to the kind of earlier point on parity of esteem. I was just interested to kind of get your views on whether you thought that in terms of policy coming from the Parliament and the Government I knew that the message was strong enough in support of college education. Okay anyone want to pick that one up to start? Al? That's a difficult question to answer. I think that the certainly the cuts that we're seeing in the college budget for this year and the coming few years is going to be a real challenge, but that's not to say that they're not also replicated in universities. I think that the challenge for colleges is the restrictions that they have to react to those challenges. I won't speak for colleges, I'll let them make their own evidence on that. I think that in terms of the students that come through colleges we tend to see students from a real very background coming with real challenges or experiences that perhaps isn't necessarily replicated in universities and I think that therefore the support that college students need can tend to be a lot higher in terms of particularly those students who need that extra additional support. The funding that's coming through for that support is not necessarily to the level that it needs to be within the college sector. I'll give a specific example of councillors on campus. There was a lot of discussion about more councillors required on campuses both university and colleges and money came through for that and that has been a real development within the sector. Even at the height of that colleges were still much less supported to provide that service even though there was a much higher demand. It is definitely something that needs on-going support because it is going to be a real challenge going forward with more cuts coming down the line. The regionalisation project of colleges is meant to make the sector more streamlined and more able to adapt to those challenges but I think that the way in which colleges operate is very very different to the way universities operate and therefore I think that colleges do need in a lot of ways more support because they don't have that additional income coming through through research funding for instance. I hope that answers the question. I think that I mentioned it before but I think that it's less of a policy problem, more of a culture problem. As I said before, people think that college is a secondary university and even in my own experience I sat on an SQA working group this year and I had to constantly say to remind the people on the SQA group it's not just school people that are doing SQA qualifications, there's also college learners and to have to constantly remind the SQA just shows how much of a culture problem we have when they're at the heart of the education system. Thank you, Christian Oliver. As I was going to say, it won't come to a surprise to any of us on this committee the sort of challenges you have in communicating that to the SQA. I just wanted to think if it goes wider to politicians and to the Parliament and government as well, whether you feel, you know, because I think we all say your college education is important and that colleges have a key role but it's whether you think that the kind of political support is there to make parity of esteem real. That's a big question. Maybe we might have to leave that one when they come back to it later if they're needing a bit of on this. Anyone wants to no? I'm looking at no. I want food for thought. As I said, if you have any thoughts on that we might have time to pick that up at the end. Willie Rennie, over to questions from yourself now. There's probably been a bit more of a positive view about college management in today's evidence session than there was last week with the trade unions. I'm just wondering, you've probably observed that there's been quite a lot of industrial descent and the industrial relations aren't particularly strong in the sector. I'm just wondering if anyone's got a view on why that is and how you think we might be able to resolve that. Again, a big question. The mood today is very different from last week and I'm interested why that is the case. Great question, Willie. I'm looking around for... Can I go to you, Al, and I've caught your eye and I'm holding it? I think that the industrial action in colleges has been an issue throughout the regionalisation years. Particularly this year, we had strikes from lectures for over a month plus resultant boycotts, and there was threat of industrial action from support unions as well. I don't necessarily think that that's going to go away within the current funding packet that we have. Overall, throughout that period, real-terms funding has been cut. I suppose that that will always have an impact. I think that the impact on the student experience is huge whenever industrial action takes place because of the short life cycle of a student. I'm not sure whether the current funding levels or the projected funding levels for the next few years will make that situation any better, and that is a concern for the student experience, for sure. Does anyone else want to comment on that? The level of support from the tutors during that period massively dropped. They went from my experience, they went from work and doing all the things that they do, all the extra stuff that they do for us, to doing exactly what was under contract for it. It was only a few weeks, but the level of support massively dropped off. From the point of view of a student, it wasn't a comfortable place to be in. You want to support the tutors, but at the same time you've got this tiny period of time where you have to complete the course to move on to your next phase, and it was a really difficult few weeks. The impact on the refound on the students was a mix of anger and upset. They, of course, want to see their teaching staff in a good position and want to support them, but we even had students that were fearful to cross the picket line. There's no Dundee's got a bit of a volatile history when it comes to industrial action in different places. It was really sad to see that they feared to come to college and cross the picket line. We had to reassure them that, even though they were taking industrial action, their lecturers were still the same people. They were obviously just putting up a fight for that support, but that wasn't very nice to see. Let me be a bit more provocative. I mean, when I was in higher education, shunt unions were a source of revolution and agitation, and I've not really picked it up today. The college sector has faced what 10 years' worth of cuts, the flat cash of the next few years and what 43,000 whole-time equivalent places have been lost over several years. I'm just wondering why you're not angry and why you're not protesting. Again, it goes back to the forming of good relationships in the college and being part of the college, but we are angry and we've gone through NUS, and NUS has said how angry we are about it, but whatever we do, it doesn't seem to make a difference. We're angry about the cuts, and we want to see education flourish, but whatever we say, we don't seem to get anywhere. We don't really know. I think that we're at a brick wall now. For example, in the industrial action with the lecturers, we completely agree with it, but at the same time, our education is being impacted, and unless there's a change in funding, nothing's going to happen. You agree and you support it, but on the other hand, like Alex said, it wasn't such a problem at Nescol actually, but in other institutions, students are not having their assessments marked and therefore they're having issues with progression, so they become angry at the wrong people because of that. The problem is the funding. That's the problem. Thank you, Kirsten. Amy wants to come back in then over to John, but Amy first, thank you. John. I totally agree with Kirsten. I think that looking at it over the 10 years and how we've been cut constantly, but not sitting here angry doesn't take away how passionate people are within student associations and what we believe in. We believe that student associations have to be funded going forward, and the reason behind that is that they have to be funded going forward is because they have to work to do on the ground and the students do on the ground, and we believe in what we do and will always, as a student union and as a student movement, move going forward. We'll always believe in what we do, but we are angry at times, but sometimes anger doesn't change anything, so what we do is we constantly fight the battle. Heather, are you wanting to come in on this? You don't need to if you don't want to. I think that there definitely is still an anger there, but I've found in our case that being diplomatic about it often yields better results. We have a really good relationship with the regional team at UHI, and often sitting down and having those discussions behind closed doors yields better results than standing up against them, because then there's a bit of an affront. We work together to find the best solutions, and I've found that the senior management team at UHI undoubtedly does want the best result for students, and they do listen to us. They want to know how they can help and if they can help. In the case of the cuts, I've seen them personally, how unhappy they are about it, and then the choices they're going to have to make. They don't want to have to make those choices, so there is a bit of sympathy there as well. Amy has subsequently put an R in the chat bar, so we'll go back to Amy online. I totally agree with Heather. I think that it's how we channel that anger. We're really smart about the conversations that we have, and I think that a lot has gone behind closed doors. We've written letters, we've made phone calls, we've done all the things, and we team up with our exact-to-best approach. I think that the more people invested in behind that sort of fight, the better. The last set of questions this morning, rather, is from Ross Greer. Over to you, Ross. Thanks, convener. It's not quite afternoon yet, and I promise it won't be the afternoon by the time I've finished these. I'm interested in continuing with what I was reflecting on there at the start, but the difference in tone here in terms of how you're talking about your relationships with college management and what we heard last week from the trade unions. I think that it's fair to say that the kind of evidence that we were getting from the trade unions made it very clear that there's a fundamental lack of trust between unions and college management. We've not heard from management yet, but it would be fair to say that that goes both ways. There does seem to be more trust between yourselves and management. I'm interested in any reflections that you've got on that, but the first question that I've got is about your relationship with the unions, because you mentioned a lot about the ways in which you engage with college management. Do you have much regular contact with the lecturers union, with the support staff unions? Is that part of your week-to-week activities as student associations, or is that all set quite separate from the work that you do? I'm looking at it. Can anyone respond? Al, again, and then McColl? I can respond quickly to say that my experience is no, student associations and trade unions do not work very closely together. Trade unions tend to work at a national level and work directly with NUS. At a local level, my experience is that trade unions will be in contact with the student association whenever there is industrial action. Out with that, not so much. In relation to the student association working with college boards, there's a different relationship because the student officers are living the experience, so maybe the board is more open to listening to their individual experiences and understanding of college life and being more open to creating strategy and elements to be able to support the student experience, because that is the key. We all want the same end goal, we all want to have students at the centre, we all want them to succeed, we want them to progress and we want them to be the best that they can. I guess that's maybe why there's a bit of a disparity. If I could continue by always the theme of being provocative, and I absolutely know that I've been offenced by this, I've stressed before I ask it, but do you think that the difference in the relationship between unions and management yourselves and management, is there any bearing on that from the fact that your relationship with management also involves the funding that student associations receive from colleges? Unions don't receive funding from college management, they receive membership dues. Do you ever feel that the financial relationship compromises your ability to perhaps be a bit tougher in that relationship and a bit more combative? I've got Kirsten, and then Heather is keen to answer that. Kirsten, over to you. Absolutely. It would be really, really difficult for us to flat out publicly disagree with the college, whereas ASVilla can just go out there and say, we don't agree with this, for example. In relation to your first question, it would be useful for us to meet with trade unions on a regular basis. The only time that I met with any trade union reps outside of casual conversations with the staff I know that are union reps at the college was when NUS organised a meeting with us in the ASVilla reps during the first instances of the strike, which was really useful, but it did turn into, I think, because we don't have that regular contact with them, it turned into a bit of a you versus us. Really, we all have the same angle. I think that our relationship with the UHS and your management team is a very productive one. They regularly refer to us as the experts on learning, so they want our opinion, and I think that that is partially why it's so good. When it comes to funding, I don't feel it impacts as much. They want to see us as effective, and they were happy to fund us further if we are effective, which they have been asking more of us recently. When it comes to trade unions, we don't regularly speak to them. I think that that is something that we need to change. There is probably a fair few at UHI just with the different levels of lecturers, but on a regular basis, it isn't something that we do. John Swinney wants to come in, too. I agree with what Heather said as well. The EIS and trade unions don't have any relationship with us, and I do agree that we have to have that relationship going forward. Rather, I'm just meeting our speedy days at the times when strides and so on are happening. In relation to challenging management because of funding, it's not an experience that definitely is not something that I would portray on to the SAF. If we do have a challenge, we will challenge the management whether they give us funding or not, because, again, we work on what we've achieved and what we're achieving going forward and the development going forward. Whether we're funded by them or not, the right thing to do is to challenge them if we have to, and it's just in my experience that that's never been the case. Ross Ross, on the lack of engagement so far with unions, and it seems that there's an appetite for more of that, has the barrier to that so far been one of capacity, that there's just so many demands on your time as student association officers, or is it just the case that neither side has quite reached out to the other to make that a more structured and ongoing relationship yet, and it maybe could be going forward? If it's the latter, it seems like an easy enough one to solve, but if the biggest barrier to you engaging with staff unions is a lack of capacity on one side or another, there's a bigger structural issue that we need to unpack there before we could fix that. Heather, you're nodding away over to you. I think for us it's probably an element of both. As a regional officer at HISA, I'm swamped. I sit on so many meetings and so many committees, I've got people pulling from my attention constantly every day, but I also think that we haven't reached out to them, but they haven't reached out to us as well, so I do think that at some point we should do that, and we should sit down and have a talk. At the industrial action that happened recently, we did put out a statement saying that we understood why they were doing this, and if students needed support to get in touch with us, we were trying to cover both areas in that respect while we understood why they were striking, and we understood the impact it would have on students as well. I think that there's more work that needs to be done there. At HISA, we have the, it's both, but also I think in terms of engaging with certain members of staff, whether it be at the college or union reps, there is an element of some members of staff in some union reps still don't value students associations, they don't value what we have to say, they don't really care, and I think it can be really difficult sometimes to have that discussion. I think going back to that meeting that we had at NUS and EIS Fela, it was like a us versus you, and we don't really care what you have to say because we're going on strike anyway sort of thing, so I think we kind of, it goes back to another culture problem, we have to have that culture of we're partners, not hierarchy. Thank you. One question is a specific one for John, unless anybody else is looking to come in and I've just missed them on this. No one else is looking to come in, so you're fine, Ross. John, if you don't mind, I've just got one question for yourself about your relationship with the regional board, because I was really interested in what Heather was saying about quite a positive relationship there, but also the variation between your relationship Heather with the regional board and individual colleges. I think it's fair to say from some of what we've heard previously that in Glasgow the relationship with the regional board is a bit more, not challenging, but some folk would question what additional value that board is providing on top of the existing relationship between college management and staff union student associations, et cetera. John, from the Lanarkshire perspective, is there an added value that you're seeing from having that additional level of regional infrastructure there? What's your relationship with the regional board like? Do you feel you're getting something out of that, or are you just dealing primarily with management and board level at your individual institution? My experience in that is that our presidents probably have more experience in the regional board than any else. I know that our president sits on the regional board and that our outcomes are exactly the same as what we would do to present to our normal board, but I do have probably don't see any difference between the regional board and our normal board. It's the same work. It's the only thing that I do see different is that we only have one member from new college Lanarkshire that sits on that regional board and one that sits from another college within that region. It would be better if we had two presidents that sat from Lanarkshire on that board, but I don't really see. I can't have an opinion on something that I do with the senator. That's all from me, community. Thank you very much, Ross. I suppose it's been really tremendous to hear the evidence from yourselves, the people that are really on the ground, and having gone through the education system right at this very moment. You don't often get the opportunity to come to Parliament to make positions and make sure that your voices are heard. I'm giving you the opportunity here, as we've got a little bit of time on our agenda. Is there something that you wanted to desperately say today that perhaps you've not had the opportunity to bring to the committee? That's a bit of an open-floor question there. Does anyone want to go first on that, Kirsten? I'm sure that you're aware of NUS talking about summer payments for students. I think that it's quite a scary time to be a student over the summer. You have to go and get a full-time job. Who's going to give you a full-time job for two months and then you're going to go away in August? When are we going to see summer payments for students? Thank you, Kirsten. It's one for Philip Heather. You're nodding away. Is there anything else you might want to make us aware of? Just in complete agreement with Kirsten, to be honest. Having been that student who had a part-time job and had to get a second part-time job over summer and worked myself ragged is a very stressful time. Summer payments is something that's been spoken about for longer than they've really had some action around. At this point, I think that they are quite necessary. Anyone else want to look online? Amy, just now you've come in. There we go. Thank you. My community might be around that sort of bottom line. There seems to be no bottom line for our students association funding. I know that our one is the lowest at just. It works out at 23 pence per head for our students. We try to run as many things as possible, breakfast clubs and things like that. That's barely one pot of porridge per student for the whole year. I would love to see some sort of bottom line or baseline where there's a more calculation behind where the funding comes from and the amount that each college gets so that it is consistent, whether you're studying in Dunedin Angus or you're in Aberdeen or in Glasgow. You've still got that level of support from your students association to be able to offer all these more wraparound services and formal things that really, as I said before, make up your college experience. Thank you, Amy. You've done really well, given that you've not been feeling 100 per cent today in all your contributions, so thank you very much. Kirsten's got her hand up again, so I will go to Kirsten. It's just to add on Amy's point that baseline staffing would be good as well. I've visited a number of college and university students associations. For example, Aberdeen University Students Association have more staff in their HR department than we have in the entire Nescal Students Association. We have one member of staff who works half and halfs, half of her job is to manage the Students Association and half is engagement generally, and we have one member of staff who's funded by an SFC grant, so really we don't have a full-time member of staff. How can we support people who are only there for a year? How can we maintain the Students Association with just that half our staff member who's also half the college? It would be good to see a baseline number of staff members too. I guess the importance is looking at individual colleges, because although we're all part of the sector, we're all completely different, we're all funded in different ways, we all have different staffing, we all have different students. For example, with the funding, if our College Students Association doesn't have it, we go to our principal and we deliver a case. For example, when we're talking about the free breakfast and lunch, that doesn't come directly from the Students Association, that's directly from the College, and I guess people just need to look at individual colleges and how their sources of funding are completed and the negotiations individually between them. Thank you, and over to Alex. Again, pretty much what everybody else is saying, it's all for myself, it's all a bit of funding. People like myself, essentially for half the month I'm a single man, and the funding for a single man who wants to go back into education is almost non-existent. It's not there, there's no help for us. It's all geared around students who are just leaving home or they're just coming out of high school. What about people like myself who, after 41 years, I need to retrain because of my physical and mental well health, so I have to retrain, but I can't afford to retrain for myself. I'm not too sure whether I'm going to be able to financially be able to afford the next four years or whether I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go back to work. Funding for people in my group would be amazing. Thank you, Alex, and John, on-line, finally. Just a quick comment, convener, just to say that I think my experience over the 10 years is just getting sure that the effect of work that student associations have carried out over the years going forward. We need to be funded and we need to be at the front of that funding for the officers to make that impact on the ground and for us to be able to support them as a student association going forward and our local students within those colleges that we need to be inadequately funded and make sure that that's all that's at the top here going forward. That would be my wish anyway. Thank you very much, and thank you for a great super informative session this morning, and I'd like to thank you all for your time. We're now going to have a short suspension to allow the witnesses to leave and get set up for the next session. Thank you. Agenda item 2. Our next item of business is the consideration of two pieces of negative subordinate legislation. The St Mary Music School aided places Scotland amendment regulation 2022, SSI 2022-172, and the Education Scotland Act 1980 modification regulations 2022, SSI 2022-173. So we'll start with the St Mary Music School aided places Scotland amendment regulations 2022. Do any members have any comments on this instrument? As the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument, I agreed. Thank you very much. Next is the consideration of the Education Scotland Act 1980 modification regulations 2022. Again, do any members have any comments on this instrument? As the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument, I agreed. That is the public part of today's meeting now at an end, and we will consider our final agenda items in private. Members are attending virtually to reconvene on Microsoft Teams in a few minutes. Thank you very much. Thank you and good morning.