Snpareputtingourworldleading universities at risk
◆ For more than a decade, the nationalists have presided over an education system in decline, says Christine Jardine
There are few scientific achievements or moments which have left a distinct impression on this particularly arts and politics orientated individual. But there are three perhaps which I found both inspiring and moving: man landing on the moon; Dolly the sheep; and the confirmation of the Higgs boson particle in the Large Hadron Collider at Cern.
The last one we were all, of course, reminded of last week with the death at the age of 94 of the Nobel Prize winner, Professor Peter Higgs, who originally predicted the existence of the particle which bears his name. But just a few days beforehand, I had come face to face with the impact his work and reputation have had in helping promote the University of Edinburgh to the scientific community.
Like Dolly the sheep and more recently its involvement with the James Webb Space Telescope, such achievements have propelled the university into the world’s highest academic echelons.
At no less a place than Nasa, Edinburgh University is respected and its work embraced with enthusiasm. Its name is dropped into conversation too by representatives of others of the world’s leading universities. On recent visits to Stanford, New York University and Colombia University, as well as Nasa, their leaders had nothing but praise and recognition too for our other major universities. Which is why it is so crushing to wonder whether the challenges facing the sector in Scotland will undermine their ability to nurture the worldchanging scientists of the future. At Edinburgh alone, we have those recent achievements which I have already mentioned as evidence of the quality of our tertiary education in the past 50 years.
Speaking recently to representatives of Universities Scotland, I wondered how long they will be able to maintain those top-tier international rankings before issues over funding, lack of interest from foreign students, and neglect by politicians find them struggling in the way our schools have. Just this week, I was told some of our universities are finding it increasingly difficult to entice those foreign students who are so vital to their financial well-being because this country is no longer regarded as a welcoming place. Across the UK, there has been a drop of around 44 per cent in applications from outside our borders.
As a new young student, I remember being addressed at Glasgow University by our then Rector John Bell. Only if we opened our minds and engaged with new ideas, foreign institutions and challenged existing norms would we truly have been to Glasgow University.
Oxford and Cambridge are our oldest and best-known universities. But before England had a third university Scotland had four: Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Each of them and many of those which followed maintain high reputations around the world, allowing this country to attract world leaders and to nurture talent like Peter Higgs. For more than a decade, the SNP have presided over a decline in our education system across the board.
As a result we see a decline in opportunity, the economy and Scotland’s future as a whole. To deprive our universities, and people, of that, of what they need, is not good enough.