New Campus Glasgow: Strategic Benefits Analysis
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3.32 The city-centre colleges face a number of barriers in attempting to deliver the new
learning paradigm within their existing estates. The new curriculum will offer the opportunity to
provide learners:
• Modern library and learning resource facilities which are accessible on an almost
24/7 basis, and which incorporate areas for quiet study, group learning, and state
of the art IT facilities - experience from the University of Dundee indicates that
such facilities can significantly increase the patronage of library facilities by
students.
• Modern learning facilities within teaching areas, including the use of networked
digital projection facilities and interactive whiteboards in all rooms.
• A wider range of areas for students to exhibit and showcase their work to the
public and fellow students.
• A wider range of better equipped service areas which provide students in a range
of curriculum disciplines the opportunity to gain practical experience within a semicommercially
operated business environment.
3.33 The new campus will also enable the colleges to pool their expertise and capacity in
holistic student support services, not only in terms of generic information advice and guidance
but also in more specific areas of careers, learning and lifestyle support. By pooling their
expertise, colleges will be able to offer a broader range of such support in-house and on-site
(covering matters such as mental health,learning difficulties etc.).
3.34 Policy at both national and city-wide levels sees a role for colleges develop further
specialisms, but at the same time, to ensure that they can be increasingly flexible in their
curriculum offer in response to the demands of learners. The NCG proposals will allow the
colleges to build on their current specialisms, while at the same time increasing the long-term
flexibility of provision that they can offer:
• By collaborating on the development of 'curriculum institutes', the colleges will be
able to 'iron-out' some of the overlap and duplication that exists across some
areas of the curriculum offer, and invest any savings from rationalisation into the
provision of a wider range of more specialist provision. For many external
stakeholders, this will be a key benefit of the NCG proposals.
• The new campus will enable the colleges to become more flexible over both
shorter and longer timescales. In the short-term, collaboration between the
colleges across curriculum institutes will, through economies of scale, offer the
possibility of the colleges delivering provision across a wider range of hours, to
suit learners with different needs. In the longer-term, the design of the new
campus will rely heavily on 'free-standing' internal walls (i.e. walls that are not
structural), to enable space to be reconfigured relatively easily to reflect changing
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Appendix 13: Economic Impact Report