The Supporting College Student Governors programme, run in conjunction with NUS Scotland, consists of two main elements – a series of toolkits published on our website, and an annual residential training event. This event recently took place in Dundee, and was attended by around forty students who were members or observers of their college’s Board of Management. The training covered a range of skills and knowledge about the sector, colleges and the work of boards. It involved contribution from Education Scotland (formerly HMIE) and also featured our usual innovative simulation exercise set in a fictitious college scenario.
Building on the success of the event, sparqs and NUS are currently reviewing the format, including consultation with other sector agencies, to ensure college students are fully equipped to face the challenges of the future.
Although the event has in the past rightly focused on governance as its main topic, this inevitably connects with other issues such as quality and students’ association development, which are not covered in sufficient depth currently. Furthermore, while the event regularly receives very favourable evaluations from participants, one consistent criticism is the amount of information delivered in a short two day period. To this end, the review of the format is proposing to expand the event to a third day to incorporate this range of topics and to involve a wider audience of student officers in colleges.
To give your views on this or to find out more, please contact Simon Varwell, sparqs Development Advisor, at simon.varwell@sparqs.ac.uk