Predicting the future is a fool’s game. But we all do it, just the same. Our innate resistance to change is pushed aside by the desire to imagine the world as we would wish it to be. So here goes. My time to be foolish.
The college of the future, maybe 10 years hence, will beÌýtangibly different to that which we know today. Here’s why:
The relentless competition for post-16 students, particularly in urban settings, will haveÌýsettled into a more measured marketplace. Competition and freedom of choice will still exist butÌýon a much fairer basis. Gone will beÌýboth the micro school sixth forms that relied on cross-subsidy to survive and the constant advent of new providers. In theirÌýplace we will have a genuinely collaborative educational landscape that promotes local joint working, shared staff development and curriculum innovation. Career pathwaysÌýwill beÌýeasier to explain and navigate.
ReadÌý³¾´Ç°ù±ð:ÌýCommission on the ‘college of the future’ unveiled
More views:ÌýNow is the time to set a vision for colleges
Background:ÌýMeet the man defining the college of the future
Colleges of the future
Our college estate will haveÌýbeen rebuilt and will beÌýable to fully embrace the technological challenges of vocational education in the 2030s. Paradoxically, Brexit will have helped here. The skills crisis of the early 2020s was so intense that there really was no alternative but to upgrade the often tired facilities we had grown accustomed to.
The price for this investment will beÌýmaybe better described as a dividend. Colleges and employers will have takenÌýcollaboration to a new level, co-designing facilities that enableÌýsmooth knowledge transfer across an integrated education and work ecosystem.
The new investment won’t stop there. A fresh settlement will have aligned college and school pay and brought fresh talent into the sector. Realistic revenue funding will haveÌýallowed programmes of study to fill out and reach parity with other countries where vocational and technical education is also valued. Restored enrichment funding will haveÌýled to broad societal benefits whereby students feel connected and enfranchised through educational opportunities that genuinely allow them to build prosperous futures. Ìý
But the journey willÌýnot always have been easy or without its controversies. To become better understood there will be a need to redefine FE’s purpose more radically than could have been envisaged back in 2019. Some things will beÌýgiven up. Few colleges willÌýsponsor schools, take students aged 14-15 or deliver higher education but their share of the 16-18 market will haveÌýincreased every year and adults willÌýsee their local college as an essential part of their lifelong learning and training journey.
By the end of the 2020s it will haveÌýbecome clear that the dialogue between the sector and the state is now conducted on an entirely different basis. The seeds of this will have been sown more than a decade previouslyÌýand its fruits will beÌýevident everywhere. Civil servants will no longer ask what FE does or what they can expect in return for better funding. Both are self-evident. Few policymakers will have no direct experience of FE and all will routinely champion its accomplishments. Our sector will spend its time focused on the challenges facing our local communities and our wider economy, not any more on how it will survive another year.
Foolish? Maybe. But this kind of future is altogether a better place to be.
Gerry McDonald is group principal and chief executive at New City College.
The Independent Commission on the College of the FutureÌýis asking the central question of what we want and need from our colleges across the four nations of the UK from 2030 onwards. The commission has now published a , which aims to reflect the many conversations itÌýhasÌýhad so far and to stimulate and provoke more ideas. ItÌýwelcomes your feedback through an as itÌýworks towards a final report with recommendations for each of the four nations for publication in the spring of 2020.
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