Equality drive may threaten traditional four-year degrees

THE traditional four-year Scottish university degree could be under threat as part of moves to recruit a greater number of poorer students.

Experts believe the long degree may be off-putting for some prospective students from deprived areas who want to start earning more quickly and may struggle to afford living costs while studying.

Critics have said the first year of courses often just rehash students’ final school year.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC), which has been investigating inequality on campuses, has now said the four-year degree model could be changed.

Students would be able to cut study costs by working at the same time as taking shorter courses part-time.

Scottish Tory education spokesman Liz Smith said: There is no reason why universities must adhere to the four-year degree without providing any flexibility. Clearly, some courses could be completed within three years.’

Higher education funding quango the SFC pointed to the work of the Scottish Government’s Commission on Widening Access.

In a report, the SFC said the Commission had identified a ‘need to enable students to engage with the curriculum in a more flexible way that suited them and their lives’ and ‘this might require changing from the four year-degree model’.

Scotland has the UK’s lowest proportion of pupils from state schools and colleges going to university.

But the SFC said in its report that progress had been made in tackling this. The proportion of undergraduates from the 40 per cent most deprived areas rose from 29.2 per cent to 31.6 per cent between 201112 and 2014-15. But the SFC figures also show the proportion from the ‘least deprived’ areas fell from 14.7 per cent in 2011-12 to 13.3 per cent.

This could fuel fears that the drive to recruit more students from poorer households will ‘squeeze out’ some middle class youngsters.

An SFC spokesman said: ‘We want our investments and policies to be working towards a country where talent is developed fairly and equally across all parts of society.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said there were no plans to ‘move away’ from the four-year degree, which is ‘highly regarded around the world’.