TECHday Glasgow 2026: What Colleges Can Learn from the Latest AV and AI Innovations

 

With colleges wrestling with hybrid delivery, estate pressures, and the rapid rise of AI, this year’s TECHday event felt less like a tech showcase and more like a snapshot of where FE learning spaces could be heading, if we have the investment to support the closure of the digital divide. 

Mediascape’s annual gathering may be compact, but it continues to offer one of the clearest windows into the technologies that will shape teaching and learning over the next few years.

It's great to meet and see all the suppliers who all use MediaScape to install and service their systems.  

It was great to catch up with lots of old friends and make some new ones. I still really like SmartBoard Mini.

What stood out this time was the shift from speculative AI conversations to practical, deployable solutions tools that can make a difference in classrooms tomorrow, not in some distant future.

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AI‑Ready Classrooms Are Becoming the New Standard

Across the exhibitor stands, the strongest theme was the shift toward AI‑enhanced teaching environments. Not abstract AI, not hype, but practical tools that make hybrid delivery smoother and reduce staff workload.

I saw intelligent camera and microphone arrays that automatically track speakers, built‑in AI captioning and transcription that actually works in real time, and Teams/Zoom‑certified room kits designed for reliability rather than complexity. 

Wireless presentation systems rounded out the picture, supporting flexible, device‑agnostic teaching. For colleges still juggling inconsistent hybrid setups, these solutions felt mature, stable, and ready to deploy. I can be a sucker for gadgets, and I really liked the handy cam that was being used to capture the proceedings. 

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Immersive Learning Is Moving Into the Mainstream

Another standout trend was the rise of immersive and simulation‑based learning. Large LED walls, interactive displays, and projection systems are becoming more affordable and more adaptable to vocational contexts.

For construction, engineering, and health programmes, simulation environments now offer realistic, safe spaces for learners to practise skills before stepping into real‑world placements. These tools aren’t just visually impressive;  they support deeper engagement, repetition, and confidence‑building, especially in sectors where placement capacity is tight, or learners need more time to develop practical competence - you can wander around in spaces that you cannot access in real life. 

And the simple set of wireless headsets that can turn a noisy atrium or busy exhibition space into a viable space for focused presentations could be used for a silent disco, too.

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Smart‑Campus Tech Is Quietly Transforming Estates Planning

I was lucky latterly to be on a smart campus. Though I was never sure where the data actually went.

An increasingly important strand of the event focused on smart‑building technologies. These systems can monitor occupancy, automate environmental controls, and feed real‑time data into estate dashboards. For colleges managing ageing estates, fluctuating timetables, and ambitious carbon‑reduction targets, this kind of intelligence is becoming essential. The shift toward data‑driven estates planning was clear: institutions will soon expect their buildings to tell them how they’re being used, where energy is being wasted, and how learning spaces can be optimised. Well, I would expect that data as a board member.

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A Chance to Reconnect — and a Reminder of Sector Realities

One of the unexpected highlights of the day was catching up with colleagues from my own FE past — including an early‑career IT technician I once knew who’s now the head of technology at a major Glasgow college. It was a reminder of how much the sector evolves, and yet how many of the challenges stubbornly stay the same.

We ended up swapping stories that felt painfully familiar: significant investment in hybrid classrooms, but far less investment in the staff development needed to make that technology work. The result is predictable: frustration, wasted money, and teaching staff who, through no fault of their own, end up dismantling or bypassing equipment simply because they don’t know what it does. Every college seems to have its own horror stories. The shared wisdom was simple: if in doubt, ask a tech, and always check the room is working before you start teaching. It’s not glamorous advice, but it’s the difference between a smooth session and a chaotic one, and pulling all the wires out will never make a system work. 

Had a good chat too about how easy it is to open up SharePoint to share learning materials beyond the organisation and around, no-cost solutions to allow staff to create local agents in Microsoft Co-Pilot. But I fear we are still some way off from that being normal practice.  

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Cybersecurity and AI Governance Are Rising Priorities

As AI becomes more embedded in teaching spaces and campus systems, cybersecurity is moving rapidly up the agenda. Several sessions highlighted the risks associated with AI‑enabled devices, from data capture to network vulnerabilities and the need for robust governance frameworks. For colleges, this reinforces a simple truth: adopting AI isn’t just about innovation. It’s about ensuring that the systems supporting learners and staff are secure, compliant, and aligned with institutional policies. 

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So What Does TECHday Tell Us About the Future of FE?

For me, the event reinforced a few key points:

• The future of FE learning is hybrid, flexible, and AI‑supported
• Teaching spaces need to be AI‑ready, not just AV‑equipped
• Immersive and simulation technologies are becoming core to vocational delivery
• Estates teams will increasingly rely on data‑driven decision‑making
• AI governance and cybersecurity must evolve alongside innovation
• Staff do need time, support, and training to make the best use of what is available. 
• We need open platforms. Was interesting to hear how easy it would be to make SharePoint open - and how resistant techs are to opening the platform up and or allowing staff access to tools to build their own AI agents. 

TECHday Glasgow didn’t offer speculative visions of the future. It offered practical, deployable technologies that colleges can adopt right now to improve teaching, learning, and campus operations.

And in a sector where time, budgets, and staff capacity are always tight, that’s exactly what we need.

The Silent Crisis: Why Your Vote in May 2026 Matters for Scotland’s Colleges

Scotland’s funding system prioritises where you study over what you learn. This has left college students chronically underfunded compared to their university peers, even when they are studying for the exact same level of qualification.

As we approach the Scottish Parliament election on May 7th, the survival of the college sector is no longer a "future" problem; it is a present-day emergency. I have looked beyond the campaign slogans to ask: which policies will finally align our education system with the occupational competencies the modern world actually demands?

The "Data Gap": Why Universities Resist the SCN

A major hurdle to fairness is the lack of transparency. Most people don't realise that while work-based learning, schools and colleges use the Scottish Candidate Number (SCN) to track a learner’s journey from age five, the university system has largely resisted adopting it.

By using their own internal IDs instead of the SCN, universities make it nearly impossible to track a student’s progress through the entire system. This "data silo" hides a multitude of sins, including potential double-funding and an inability to prove if "widening access" programs are actually working. Without a single ID, we are essentially trying to run a national education system where the biggest players speak different languages.

The "Missing Link" Between Degrees and Competencies

The core of the problem is a fundamental divide in how courses are built. Universities enjoy "Academic Autonomy," meaning they create their own curriculum based on theoretical research. In contrast, colleges deliver a curriculum mapped to National Occupational Standards (NOS).

If a degree claims to be vocational but isn't tied to these competencies, should it be funded at the same rate as a course that is?

Qualification Type	Primary Driver	Linked to Occupational Competency?
College HNC/D	Industry Standards (NOS)	Directly. Required for professional registration.
Modern Apprenticeship	Employer Demand and (NOS)	Directly. Based on "doing" the job.
Traditional BA/BSc	Academic Research	Rarely. Designed for "critical thinking," not a specific job.
Graduate Apprenticeship	Co-designed (Uni + Employer)	Directly. The "Gold Standard"—should embed HN and SVQ levels based on (NOS)

Where the Parties Stand (May 2026)

I believe all the current manifestos fall short of delivering a truly equitable settlement for vocational education, but here is how the "Big Three" are pitching their solutions:

1. The Scottish National Party (SNP)

The SNP is betting on the Tertiary Education and Training (TET) Act 2026. Their plan is to merge college and university funding into a "single bucket" to ensure money follows the learner.

• The Catch: While they talk about "parity," college funding has dropped by 20% in real terms, leaving campuses in an "emergency" state.

2. Scottish Labour

Labour is positioning itself as the party of the workforce, promising multi-year funding settlements. This would allow colleges to stop living hand-to-mouth and actually plan for the long term.

• The Catch: They have been vague on whether the current "no-fee" model is sustainable without a massive injection of cash they haven't yet found.

3. Scottish Conservatives

The Tories are focusing on the physical decay of the sector, proposing a Capital Investment Fund for "wind and watertight" repairs. They also want more "college autonomy" to let institutions keep the money they earn from business partnerships.

• The Catch: Their wider plans to cut government spending could leave little room for the revenue increases the sector desperately needs.

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The Verdict

If we want a fair system, we must "cut our cloth" accordingly. A truly learner-friendly policy wouldn't just promise more cash; it would mandate that any vocational degree must be mapped to National Occupational Competencies and funded at the same rate as a college HND.

Until we close the "Missing Link" and adopt a single tracking number (SCN) for every student, the "parity of esteem" between colleges and universities will remain a myth.

Many of these issues are very long-standing, and no administration has really been prepared to tackle them. The system should be about learners, not institutions. I reflected on a similar theme in 2024.

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Transparency Note: To help navigate the dense landscape of 2026 election manifestos, budget reports, and legislation like the Tertiary Education and Training (TET) Act, I used AI as a research collaborator to pull this data together. All policy comparisons and insights were cross-referenced against official party platforms and sector reports from Colleges Scotland and Audit Scotland to ensure accuracy.