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In the final part of our Jersey Evening Post series about the College, we hear from Jo…
A Campus For Tomorrow: Highlands College’s Vision for Lifelong Learning
Jo Terry-Marchant, principal of Highlands College, argues that an investment in the higher-education provider is an investment in Jersey and tells Emily Moore why teaching efforts are being hampered by the existing building
THERE is, says Jo Terry-Marchant, an interesting bias in the world of education and employment. Further education is often described as the middle child in the UK education system, sometimes struggling to be seen or heard.
As the principal of Highlands College explains, although the number of people studying to degree level in the UK has risen “exponentially” in recent years, many of these academically qualified individuals still do not have the skills which employers – and the economy – require. On the other hand, Jo says, degree apprenticeships, delivered in further education colleges, produce these skills.
As Jo says, higher and technical programmes should be the jewel in the crown but teaching efforts at Highlands are being hampered by one key factor – the campus.
“While secondary schools have been rebuilt, Highlands remains on a site which was never purpose-built, even though technical education requires modern facilities more than academic education does,” she said.
“Highlands’ Strategic Plan 2025-2029 contains many priorities but each one falls under one of three overarching ambitions. Those relate to economy and skills; people, culture and the community and learning and environment.
“While all of those are important, I am going to focus on economy and skills because Highlands is central to the health and wellbeing of the Island’s economy and its people.
“There is widespread acknowledgement that there are skills gaps in the Island, both now and in the future. Digital and technology is one of the sectors with the greatest gap and, as a higher-education provider, we should be focusing on areas such as robotics and automation, but we are not doing that for the simple reason that we do not have the facilities to support such courses.”
It is that lack of facilities, she adds, which has prompted calls for the government to invest in a new campus for Highlands, something which Jo says has garnered widespread support.
“We have the support of the Chief Minister, the head of the public service, bodies such as the Institute of Directors and Chamber of Commerce and head teachers of the Island’s secondary schools,” she said.
While recognising the “major investment” that such a development would require, Jo said that failing to invest in skills training was a “false economy” that would cost more in the long run.
“Investing in skills training is absolutely vital both for now and for the future,” she stressed. “The UK, which is facing economic challenges, has recognised the importance of this, and has committed to spend £1.5bn on transforming further education.
“If you look just across the water, Guernsey is spending £88m on a new further-education campus, which is due to complete in 2027. Highlands College is three times the size of Guernsey’s college in terms of enrolments and yet our higher and technical education is delivered in buildings which are not fit for purpose and on which the government has had to spend £3m to maintain in just two years.”
But it is not just the building’s age and “leaky roofs” which are behind Jo’s calls for better facilities.
“We work from 11 buildings across two campuses, and the nature of those sites means that we do not have the workshop space to accommodate either the number of students wanting to come here or the courses which the Island requires,” she said.
“We already have 170 14-16-year-olds attending programmes here each week, and there is demand from schools, parents and young people for us to provide further training opportunities, but we don’t have the infrastructure to enable that. We are doing well with what we’ve got but it isn’t good enough for the very near future.”
Contributing to the need for better facilities and greater training, she says, are both economic factors and emerging industry sub-sectors.
“The Island has an ageing population, which means that the demand for health and social care is going to go up,” Jo pointed out. “We train health and social care workers, and we provide a social work degree, and yet our facilities lag far behind those of many further-education colleges in the UK where you will find entire rooms set up in the style of hospital wards, complete with artificial humans on which students can practise.
“The future of adult social care will involve a lot more robotics, something which we need to address but we can’t do that with the learning environment we have now.”
And it is not just in healthcare that Jo and the team have identified skills needs which the current campuses do not support.
“Green skills is another area where we need to develop our training provision to meet the targets set out in the government’s Carbon Neutral Roadmap,” she said. “We are already in discussions with Jersey Electricity about setting up a low-carbon heating curriculum, something which could provide apprenticeships not just for JE but for the whole Island but, again, although we have identified a need for such a course, we do not have facilities to resource it at the moment.
“Continuing the net-zero theme, we already offer training on ground-source heat pumps and electric vehicles but what about solar power and wind turbines? Who is going to maintain this technology?
“As the Island’s technical and vocational training provider, Highlands College should offer those courses but if we don’t have the facilities to do so, these skills will have to be brought into Jersey, which is very expensive and doesn’t support local people.”
On the subject of supporting local people, Jo stresses that Highlands does not just provide training for school-leavers and graduates, something which she said would become even more significant as the Island’s demographic changes.
“With an ageing population and a falling birth rate, lifelong learning becomes even more important,” she said. “With the growing uptake of AI in workplaces, people have to upskill and reskill very quickly.
“The UK has recognised this, with its recent white paper, Skills for jobs: Lifelong learning for opportunity and growth, highlighting the need to invest in further education to support economic growth and boost productivity. Those are two key areas where Jersey needs to focus and make strides, and Highlands has a key role to play in delivering that.”
Stressing that any new campus must “meet the needs of the entire Island”, Jo said that she would like to see a town “hub” with “spokes” for certain areas.
“I don’t see the new campus being a grandiose building,” she reflected. “In fact, we could have a smaller footprint, supported by the use of technologically intelligent buildings which would facilitate more blended learning.
“I would love to see one central hub in town, with spokes for, say, a hairdressing salon and a restaurant, which could be set up in some of the vacant buildings already in St Helier. Meanwhile, some of the engineering courses could be delivered at La Collette, with our apprentices working alongside some of the engineers already employed by the government.”
Not only would this enhance the campus’s sustainability credentials but it would also, adds Jo, increase accessibility.
“Inclusivity is core to Highlands but the age and nature of many of our existing buildings present challenges in this area,” she said. “Moving into town would give us access to better transport links while also bringing us closer to the businesses with which we work, which would make our courses accessible to far more people.
“Such a move would also enhance our sustainability credentials, something which is very important to us. We are members of the Environmental Union for Schools and Colleges and have embedded sustainability into our curriculum, working with SDG SOS to review and enhance our teaching offer.
“Our staff have also received carbon literacy training and we know that, in the education sector, we are the leaders in sustainability, although, again, our efforts in this area are hampered by the age and nature of our buildings, which are neither environmentally friendly nor cost-efficient to run.”
And this brings Jo full circle to the need for a new campus.
“An investment in Highlands is an investment in Jersey,” she said. “I was born in Jersey and, having returned to the Island after living and teaching in London for years, I can see how the Island has changed in recent years. In many ways, this has been for the better as we have a much more diverse population and an established culture of calculated risk-taking. That’s how we developed finance.
“Now it is time to take a calculated risk and invest in a new campus for Highlands to support the economy and wellbeing of the Island. There is no doubt that taking this step will have economic returns for all, and I hope the Island commits to this, so that Jersey doesn’t miss out on the opportunity to further the provision of higher education and thereby support our community and economy.”