Learning that lasts: Foundation Scotland Education & Training Fund Evaluation
Blog by Jo Finlay, Impact, Learning & Knowledge Manager, Foundation Scotland
When I began evaluating Foundation Scotland’s Education and Training Funds, I expected to learn about the number of qualifications gained, courses completed and jobs secured, and I did. But what has stayed with me most is something harder to quantify – the shifts in confidence, the relief people felt when barriers to education were removed and the sense of possibility that opened up when someone realised that learning could be for them.
This evaluation brought together learning from 27 Education and Training Funds across Scotland, administered by Foundation Scotland and funded through community benefit arrangements linked to renewable energy projects. Since 2016, these Funds have supported more than 2,000 individual awards, representing over £2.3 million invested in education, training and skills, much of it in rural and remote communities where geography, cost and connectivity continue to shape what is possible.
But evaluation doesn’t just happen on paper. It happens in conversations, in stories and in the moments where people pause to reflect on the difference funding has made in their lives.
Over the course of this work, I spoke with people at very different stages of life, including school leavers taking their first steps into further or higher education, adults retraining mid-career, parents juggling learning with caring responsibilities, and community volunteers building skills to strengthen local organisations. I also spent time with community panel and board members who shape how these Funds are used, and with donors interested not only in spend, but in long-term sustainable impact.
What struck me time and again was how often people described the funding not as a top-up, but as the difference. The difference between enrolling or not. Between staying on a course or dropping out. Between continuing in a job that no longer fitted or taking a risk on something new. For many, the flexibility of the Funds – supporting both formal qualifications and short vocational courses, alongside essential costs such as travel, childcare and equipment – mattered as much as the amount awarded. It recognised that real lives are complex and that learning rarely fits neatly into a single category.
As a researcher, I was also struck by how community-led this model feels in practice. Decisions are shaped by local knowledge and lived experience, and that shows in the range of opportunities supported, from health and social care and education, to trades, digital skills, creative practice and self-employment. These Funds are not simply about individual progression, they are about strengthening communities through people.
Trust, dignity and progression
One of the earliest Education and Training Funds – the EDF power solutions Burnhead Moss Education & Training Fund, which went on to act as a pilot for many that followed – showed just how powerful trust can be when it is built into funding design. Individuals spoke about being supported more than once as they progressed through learning, building confidence and capability over time, and described the emotional impact of that support, and not just the practical outcomes.
“Someone thinks I am worthy of that time and effort and money.”
That sense of being trusted was genuinely important. Non-means-tested funding reduced stigma, increased take-up and allowed people who were just managing, to pursue education without risking their finances or dignity.
Need shaped by place
As the evaluation progressed, the role of place became increasingly visible. In rural and remote areas, barriers to education were rarely about aspiration alone. They were about distance, transport, cost and the practicalities of participation. In many communities, mobility is not a convenience, it is a prerequisite for learning, work and independence.
Education and Training Funds seemed to work best where they recognised these realities, treating travel, accommodation, childcare and digital access not as extras, but as essential mechanisms of access.
Support without barriers
Education and training support often intersected with key transition points such as redundancy, caring responsibilities, health challenges or the realisation that a physically demanding job was no longer sustainable. Some people spoke openly about applying for funding simply to “get a bit of breathing space”:
“So I don’t have to go to the food bank every Sunday for a while.”
Others talked about returning to learning later in life, often for the first time in decades:
“I’ll be 51 when I graduate… and I want to have a bit of a career in the NHS.”
These stories challenge any narrow understanding of education funding as something primarily for young people. In practice, the Funds support learning across the life course, enabling retraining, adaptation and resilience. At the same time, communities were honest about the tensions this creates. Supporting people to learn can also mean supporting them to leave. However, there was also a flip side. Practical and vocational learning were a significant feature of funded awards, including animal care, childcare, hospitality, construction, logistics and wellbeing – skills that make a difference locally. Several people described how new qualifications allowed them to offer services in their communities, start businesses or strengthen existing organisations. Individual progression and community benefit were intertwined.
Early intervention
One Fund clearly demonstrated the power of early, long-term investment in young people, particularly when it is embedded in a school and supported consistently over time. Here, education and training funding looked like an ecosystem rather than a grant, supporting specialist teaching posts, extracurricular activities, mentoring, internships and multi-year bursaries that assisted young people into higher education. Students spoke about reduced financial stress, increased confidence and the value of being mentored by people who understood the industries they aspired to enter.
Teachers of young people who received funding described improved engagement, increased STEM uptake and pupils who might otherwise disengage coming into school specifically to take part in funded activities. This was a good reminder that impact is not always immediate, it can sometimes take years to become visible; and patience, trust and continuity are essential ingredients of positive outcomes.
Final reflections
As I reached the end of this evaluation, I found myself thinking less about outputs and more about what persists – the pride when people described what they had achieved and the relief that came with being supported at exactly the right time.
In many communities, Education and Training Funds often operated at modest financial scale, yet the effects felt significant. Funding acted as a catalyst, enabling people to move forward: “It’s allowed me to progress myself, so I don’t feel like I’m being held back.”
Across the 27 Education and Training Funds, the common thread was not a single outcome, but a shared experience of pursuing aspirations that might otherwise have postponed, abandoned or never considered at all. Impact seemed to hinge less on how much funding was awarded, and more on how it was designed. Flexibility, trust and timing were important. This work also identified tensions that do not have simple resolutions, including retention versus mobility, scale versus depth and accessibility versus accountability. However, these are not weaknesses of the model, rather they are the realities of people’s lives.
The Education and Training Funds are not a silver bullet. But they are a subtly powerful example of what can be achieved when resources are placed in communities’ hands, shaped by local knowledge and used to champion people when it counts.
And for me, that is the learning that lasts.
Read the full evaluation report and in-depth case studies