JIM SPENCE: Stark difference in leadership at Dundee’s key educational institutions

The contrast in leadership between two of Dundee’s key educational establishments was laid bare this past week.

Simon Hewitt, the principal of Dundee and Angus College, went on the front foot by unveiling ambitious plans which could revitalise the city centre, offering great opportunities for a new generation of students.

Meanwhile, his University of Dundee counterpart Iain Gillespie was reeling like a boxer on the back foot as details emerged of profligate spending and extravagant hotel bills while he travels abroad on business.

And deepening the gloom were shock claims the university could close completely in the next two years as it struggles to deal with a thirty million pounds shortfall.

The energy, drive, and ambition shown by the college is the complete antithesis of the negativity currently enveloping the university, where staff are rightly fearful that their futures are in the hands of management who have dug them into a very deep hole.

‘Class distinction’

I have experience of both institutions.

I refreshed my Highers at the college as a mature student before going on to complete a law degree at the university, and then returning to what was known as the commercial college at Constitution Road to teach law for some years.

And I was elected as rector of Dundee University just a few years back when, as I mentioned last week, the then-principal was also embroiled in controversy before departing under a cloud.

There has always been something of a class distinction between universities and further education (FE) colleges, with some folk in the higher education sector looking somewhat sniffily down their noses at FE.

FE colleges provide training after secondary school and have traditionally been associated with developing skills in the vocational and apprenticeship sector.

In The Courier area, there will be few car mechanics or joiners or hairdressers or other trades folk who didn’t spend some time at Kingsway Technical College, as it used to be known, on day release.

Similarly, there will also be many people in vital administrative functions in councils, lawyers’ offices, banks, and other areas of trade and commerce, who studied for an HNC or HND at the old commercial college.

In Higher Education, universities like Dundee provide traditional degrees in areas as diverse as law, medicine, dentistry, the arts, and a huge range of other disciplines.

Both sectors are vital to a functioning economy to produce the huge range of skills and talents a modern world needs, but FE has traditionally been seen as the Cinderella service.

‘Life into Dundee city centre’

When I taught at the college, it offered a route to qualifications and promotion in the workplace for the students who came there from school.

It also gave many older students already in work, who had either no desire or opportunity to go to university, the chance to progress their careers by obtaining a qualification which would help with promotion and advancement at work.

Increasingly, many folk feel that the benefits of a university degree have lessened, and a school of thought is emerging that vocational training and apprenticeships may be a wiser path for many students.

The plans for a new modern Dundee and Angus College, based in the struggling Wellgate Shopping Centre, would bring life back into the city centre, and could also revitalise elements which FE colleges used to provide like vocational night classes in languages, art, and more for the wider community.

It is certainly an ambitious project.

And unlike some other schemes which money has been thrown at, an FE college centrally located is something which could benefit working class folk and be a huge success story.

In a lengthy career in broadcasting so many bizarre things happen that many of them simply slip into a forgotten recess of the mind.

Naturally there’s always someone around to remind you of your most embarrassing moments.

So it was at a speaking engagement recently in Edinburgh an audience member delved into his memory banks to refresh my hazy recollection of ending up on the physiotherapist’s treatment table at Raith Rovers Starks Park, when I should have been broadcasting to the nation.

With the game finished I’d raced off to interview the two managers, but in my hurry, ended up flying headlong down the stand stairs ending up with an ankle the size of the match ball.

The Raith physio helped me onto his treatment table to assess the damage.

My radio studio producer back in Glasgow was startled to hear my young son, who’d accompanied me to the game, pick up my microphone and inform them that I was out of action on the injured list.

And to add to my embarrassment there was the painful drive home from Kirkcaldy, with a bandaged foot the size of a balloon, causing further painful grief every time I pressed the clutch.