In 2018, Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) conducted the first Scotland-wide research of staff in Scotland’s colleges on their experiences working in the sector, analysed by protected characteristics. The research report ‘Equality in colleges in Scotland: results from the 2017 staff survey and focus groups’ highlighted a variety of experiences and included a focused section on age and experience.
Further analysis of the data was conducted to uncover the experiences of the ageing staff population, and insight found that both younger and older staff had negative experiences.
The ‘Supporting workforce diversity: progressing staff equality in colleges’ project was managed by ECU (now Advance HE) as part of a three-year programme funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to support the college sector in advancing staff and student equality.