SFC news published since 2018. See SFC archived content for earlier news articles.
Photos: University of Aberdeen, Borders College, SRUC, University of Glasgow.
The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has published a new series of exploratory reports. They map out ways to improve how people move through tertiary education and develop the skills needed by regional economies.
The Pathfinders reports are the result of a £500,000 development programme led by SFC under the umbrella of the Scottish Government’s shared outcome framework for skills, which brings together collaborative projects undertaken by the Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland and which feed into the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.
The SFC programme comprised seven regional Pathfinders projects that were used as test beds for innovation, and which exemplified the programme’s hands-on, learning by doing approach. The projects were in the South and North-East of Scotland and were led by regional partnerships that went beyond colleges and universities to include organisations such as enterprise bodies, local councils and health authorities.
The resources published today capture the views and experiences of people involved in the pilot projects. They include reflections on the challenges they faced as well as thoughts on what they found useful, motivating and rewarding.
As well as the final reports from each of the seven pilot projects, an overarching report brings together insights from across the whole programme. There are also papers reflecting on what was learnt about curriculum development and the use of data and other sources of evidence.
Francesca Osowska, Chief Executive of the Scottish Funding Council, said:
“We set out to explore how we can make the education and skills system more responsive, more integrated, and more able to support regional economies.
“The Pathfinders programme has given us a lived-through experience of making new and different things happen and being able to reflect on their impacts. I’m really grateful to all the people in colleges, universities and regional organisations that have been involved along the way.”
“Inspired by what we’ve learnt through this programme, I hope colleges and universities across Scotland will use the Pathfinders resources to add impact to their own work in the future”.
The full suite of Pathfinders reports is now available on the SFC website.
