A Fife college principal has spoken of his hope that slashed budgets will not have a major impact on the experiences of students, despite looming funding cuts of around 15% in real terms.
Dr Craig Thomson, head of Adam Smith College, described the proposed budget reductions as “significant” but suggested the college had been identifying areas where cash could be saved for the past two years in a bid to soften any blow.
Before the Christmas break, the Scottish Funding Council announced its funding allocation to colleges and universities for 2011/12 based on the draft Scottish budget presented to parliament last month.
“Cuts in public funding have been in prospect for some time, and at Adam Smith College we have been preparing for this over the past two years,” said Dr Thomson.
“This work is ongoing and I intend to continue to work with staff to reduce our costs and increase our efficiency whilst maintaining the quality of the student experience. This remains paramount,” he said.
“Adam Smith College continues to develop as a major driver of economic and community development in Fife. We are very proud of the quality and diversity of the work that we do and will do in the future with existing and prospective students.”
While the possibility of job losses have not been ruled in or out at this time, Adam Smith believes it is on a better footing than some other colleges in the sector having already taken steps to reduce its expenditure.’Strong base’Indeed, vice-principal Ian Harrington told The Courier last month that the college which has its main bases in Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes and Leven was starting the budget process from a “strong financial base” because of the work done to identify savings in the past two years.
Dundee College has already said it will seek voluntary redundancies to attempt £4m savings over the next two years, while Graham Bowstead, chairman of the board of management at Dunfermline’s Carnegie College, recently described the scale of the cuts as a “real blow for people and their families and a recipe for disaster for the provision of future skills.”
Earlier this week the National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland suggested that a cut in the money being made available for college bursaries could risk creating a “meltdown in the system.”
Student leaders claimed student bursaries were facing a real-terms cut of around £1.7m in the coming financial year this after a drop of £3.5m last April.
“While we accept cuts have to be made, taking money out of the students’ pockets is surely the last thing we should be doing,” said NUS Scotland president Liam Burns.