The “big three” central Glasgow colleges have agreed to explore a merger, the TESS understands. This would create an institution of more than 22,000 students and assets of pound;29 million.

With 10 colleges requiring extensive investment and a shrinking population base, Glasgow has been regarded as ripe for FE mergers for some years. But renewed pressure emerged in May when a report from the consultants KPMG, commissioned by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the umbrella Glasgow Colleges Group, recommended that the number of city colleges should be reduced to five.

The report’s four main options each suggested that the three Cathedral Street colleges in the city centre should consider merger. These are the Glasgow College of Building and Printing, the Glasgow College of Food Technology and the Central College of Commerce. The carrot is substantial investment from the funding council, particularly for buildings.

The boards of all three colleges have now agreed to explore “option appraisals” to test the benefits of merger. A key condition is that the specialist provisions in each college will be safeguarded.

There is unlikely to be a grand “Glasgow plan” to link all the FE colleges in the city, at least in the immediate term. But the Cathedral Street colleges see themselves eventually as a “national centre” offering expertise beyond the city boundaries.

The city’s Stow and North Glasgow colleges are also holding merger talks, we understand, although the KPMG report recommended that Stow link with Anniesland and North Glasgow with John Wheatley. The other options would bring together Langside and the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies, while Cardonald would survive alone.

The attempt to look at FE in Glasgow on a city-wide basis contrasts with the abortive merger between the colleges of Food Technology and Building and Printing in 1997, which was rejected by the then Scottish Office on the grounds that it failed to consider the wider FE context in Glasgow.

Neil Munro