Colleges have become crucial in offering second chances to students who missed out on Higher passes in school - but financial support is needed for this to remain affordable, according to the NUS students’ union.

The NUS comments come as new figures from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) on this year’s exam results in the college sector show a larger proportion of students achieving an A-D at Higher.

According to the figures, published last Friday, 6,360 students who sat a Higher at a Scottish college in 2017 achieved an A-D - compared to 6,177 in 2016 - with the pass rate also rising.

However, the number of students attaining in other, ungraded qualifications equivalent to Higher (all grouped under “SCQF Level 6”), such as National Certificate or National Progression Awards courses, dropped from 6,065 in 2016 to 4,559 in 2017. In National Certificate courses alone, 3,488 students passed their course this year - over 1,300 fewer than in 2016, where it was 4,813.

NUS Scotland president Luke Humberstone said colleges played “a vital role in our education system, enabling people to gain new skills and offering a second chance to those who missed out the first time round”.

Mr Humberstone said that a national student-support review, due to be published in the coming months, was “the Scottish government’s opportunity to ensure every student has the support they need to succeed”.

Fewer undertakings

Shona Struthers, chief executive of Colleges Scotland, said that schools’ increasingly flexible approaches to the senior phase of secondary education had resulted in fewer students undertaking Highers in colleges in recent years. “Simultaneously, the currently diminishing demographic of 16-year-olds across the country means that the total number of people in this age range is less than in previous years,” she added.

“Colleges continue to ensure that learners have the work-ready skills to meet the needs of the local and national economy,” she said, and are “the linchpin upon which Scotland’s ambitions for fair access and inclusive growth will be realised”.

A Scottish government spokeswoman said colleges were delivering the skills and opportunities young people and the economy needed. She added that Scotland had one of the lowest youth-unemployment rates in Europe, with increasing modern apprenticeship places, more young Scots going to university. Full-time equivalent college places had been maintained at about 116,000 in recent times, she said.

She added: “There is no room for complacency. That is why the minister for further education [Shirley-Anne Somerville] has initiated a national college-improvement programme to raise attainment and improve retention in Scotland’s colleges over the next two academic years.”

@JBelgutay