The learner journey from school to work
Educating people and equipping them with relevant skills is essential in improving their life experiences and helping them to fulfil their potential and gain employment, in turn supporting Scotland’s economic growth.
Audit Scotland looks at how public money is spent on education and skills and what difference it is making to deliver better outcomes for citizens.
This hub sets out information from our work on school education, further and higher education, and skills and training. You can find more information on our work on early learning and childcare on our Childcare in Scotland hub. You can find out more about our planned audit work here.
Topics
Key facts
Spending
- £5.5 billion Spend on school education (2020/21) 27.8% of Local Government spend
- £750.4 million Total funding for colleges (2022/23) Revenue £675.7 million Capital £74.7 million
- £1.14 billion Total funding for universities (2022/23) Revenue £789.2 million Capital £348 million
Provision of Modern Apprenticeships
- 38,274 Modern Apprentices in training (as at 31 Dec 2021)
- Age 16-19 : 18,940 (49.5%)
- Age 20-24 : 7,539 (19.7%)
- Age 25+ : 11,795 (30.8%)
Proportion of learners moving into a positive destination*
- 95.5% School pupils moving into a positive destination (2020/21)
- 84.4% College students moving into a positive destination (2019/20)
- 88% University students moving into a positive destination (2018/19)
*employment, training or further study
Publications
Early learning and childcare
- Early learning and childcare Childcare in Scotland hub
School education
Colleges and universities
- Scotland's colleges 2022 July 2022
- Scotland's colleges 2020 May 2021
- Student loans January 2020
- Finances of Scottish universities September 2019
- Scotland's colleges 2019 June 2019
- Audit of higher education in Scottish universities July 2016
Apprenticeships and training
- Planning for skills January 2022
- Enterprise and Skills Review: Core areas of audit interest May 2019
- Modern apprenticeships March 2014
Data and exhibits
The following exhibits show variation in performance, taken from the Improving outcomes for young people through school education report.
Exhibit 3
National and local performance against a range of indicators in latest year available and change over time
Download background data for Exhibit 3 - XLS 41Kb
Exhibit 4
Gap between most deprived and least deprived pupils in percentage of school leavers achieving five or more awards at level 5 2018/19
Download background data for Exhibit 4 - XLS 36Kb
Exhibit 5
Spending on school education in real terms 2013/14 – 2018/19
Download background data for Exhibit 5 - XLS 33Kb
Exhibit D
Change in gap between most deprived and least deprived pupils in percentage of school leavers achieving five or more awards at level five, 2014/15 - 2018/19
Data Visualisation
This supplementary output presents Scotland's colleges' financial position and student demographics and outcomes information for 2020-21 (the academic year ending 31 July 2021).
For more details on incorporated colleges and college regional structures, please refer to our Scotland's colleges 2022 report.
Resources
Scottish Parliament
- The remit of the Education, Children and Young People Committee includes schools, colleges and universities.
- The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) digital hub includes briefings on a range of areas, including school education, colleges and universities.
School education
- The Scottish Government National Improvement Framework and Plan sets out the vision and priorities for school education in Scotland, and the Framework evidence report includes a range of data on school education that you can analyse.
- Data and information on individual schools is available on Parentzone Scotland.
- Education Scotland publishes reports on inspections of councils and schools.
- The Scottish Attainment Challenge is a national programme that aims to close the poverty-related attainment gap.
- Scottish Government Children’s Social Work Statistics include data on care experienced children and young people, including education outcomes.
Colleges and universities
- The Scottish Funding Council produces a range of statistics on further and higher education.
- The Scottish Funding Council has published a number of reports as part of its review of tertiary education and research, including reports on the financial sustainability of colleges and universities.
- Resilience and recovery: colleges and universities response to Covid is a series of case studies published by the Scottish Funding Council.
- Colleges use the How Good Is Our College? quality framework to evaluate and report on their performance and Education Scotland publishes reports on the quality of provision in colleges.
Skills and training
- The Scottish Employer Skills Survey is run every two years, with the most recent in 2020.
- Skills Development Scotland publishes a range of data on apprenticeships and other skills initiatives.
- Skills Development Scotland provides information on apprenticeships for individuals, employers and training providers.
- My World of Work provides career information and advice.
Get in touch
Tricia Meldrum, Senior Manager
TMeldrum@audit-scotland.gov.uk
Rebecca Seidel, Senior Manager
RSeidel@audit-scotland.gov.uk
