The real university challenge the SNP has failed to meet
MORE than 300 years ago, the foundations were laid for a higher education system with a noble, democratic objective.
It aimed to ensure that an impoverished background should be no barrier to intellectual development – and that university should not be the preserve of the rich.
The Church of Scotland, helped by local landowners, established schools in all rural parishes and burghs by an Act of Parliament. An ambitious boy from a humble background – the ‘lad o’ pairts’ – could, using a bursary system, get a university education, something which remained beyond the grasp of most youngsters in England.
But that proud tradition – which gained Scotland an enduring reputation for educational superiority around the globe – is now in peril.
Children from poorer families are now up to 20 times less likely than better- off pupils to achieve top Higher exam passes – shockingly, only six children in Edinburgh from the most deprived backgrounds gained three As at Higher in 2013.
Some 87.4 per cent of entrants in Scotland are from state schools or colleges, compared with 89.4 per cent in England, 92.3 per cent in Wales and 99.4 per cent in Northern Ireland.
The SNP points to its commitment to ‘free’ – in reality taxpayer-funded – higher education as proof that it is championing the ‘lad o’ pairts’ heritage. But it is a claim that is undermined by the available evidence.
Last week, the Nationalists pointed to a rise in exam pass rates to challenge persistent criticism of their stewardship of the state school system. This was soon undermined by the disclosure that the pass mark for Higher maths had been cut to less than 34 per cent this year, owing to controversy over its difficulty.
Investment
Universities are also grappling with the fall-out from plunging literacy standards in schools. Astonishingly, special classes in the ‘Three Rs’ are now available for some struggling undergraduates.
Earlier this year, Professor Louise Richardson, principal of St Andrews University, said: ‘The investment has to be made much earlier to ensure that kids in poor areas get the education and have the ambition to attend the best universities. In Edinburgh, as we know, 25 per cent of students attend private schools.
‘That to me suggests we need to be l ooking at the state schools and improving them so people don’t feel they have to make sacrifices to send their children to private schools.’
The Nationalists preferred to take a different route, even once issuing a threat that universities would see their funding reduced if they did not widen the social mix of undergraduates. How much easier, after all, to hector principals in this way than to tackle the root problems.
But it was an approach typical of a party that has consistently failed to understand the higher education sector.
Ahead of last year’s independence referendum, Alex Salmond and his ministers high-handedly dismissed dire warnings that breaking up Britain would kill off vital funding for research at Scottish universities, administered at UK level.
At present, students from the rest of the UK are required to pay tuition fees, effectively subsidising ‘free’ degrees for Scots, and the SNP’s White Paper on independence claimed this would continue after a split with the UK. But it soon emerged that the legal opinion on which the claims were based did not back up the SNP’s claim – stating that students from a separate UK could have the same exemption from fees as those enjoyed by any other EU state.
Another of Mr Salmond’s promises was that the ‘ rocks will melt with the sun’ before Scots are forced to pay to go to university in Scotland. He even commissioned a commemorative stone bearing this slogan.
But the supposed egalitarianism underpinning ‘ f ree’ degrees is undermined by official figures showing that fewer than half of school- leavers starting at Scotland’s leading universities are native Scots.
According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), in 2011-12, 72.3 per cent of entrants at St Andrews University were not f rom Scotland, up from around 67 per cent in 2006-07.
In 2011-12, some 37.8 per cent of entrants were from outwith the EU, compared with around 20 per cent in 2006-07 – meaning the proportion of such students almost doubled in the space of five years.
At Edinburgh University, 56.3 per cent of 2011-12 entrants were ‘ non- Scots’ in 2011-12. The proportion of overseas students had roughly doubled from 10 per cent in 2006-07.
Last week, the Mail reported that Scots pupils were being locked out of university courses still open to foreign students. The ‘ two-tier’ process means only around 250 courses north of the Border were still available for Scottish undergraduate applicants, yet more than 2,500 remain on offer to students from outside the EU.
The reason is clear: international students pay up to £30,000 a year to study in Scotland, and without them – as many within the sector will readily admit in private – universities would be in financial crisis.
Astonished
One candidate who met all of the entry requirements for a St Andrews University history degree but was rejected told me recently: ‘When my dad and I visited St Andrews for an open day I was astonished at how many of the students weren’t Scottish. At this point it did not cross my mind that I might be beaten to a place at the university by someone from a foreign country just because I’m not paying for my education.’
There are undoubted benefits to a more cosmopolitan campus. But there is no doubt that the SNP’s credentials as keepers of the flame of Scotland’s ‘lad o’pairts’ tradition are highly questionable.
The SNP has promised to protect the number of places for Scots but universities say this effectively operates as a ‘cap’ on the number of Scots that they can recruit.
Universities can be fined for exceeding the cap – which does not apply to international students. This is cold comfort for young Scots forced to watch as fee-paying students from abroad snatch up places that are denied to them.
Clearly, universities desperately need the money because Scots do not pay tuition fees.
Against this background, it is all the more galling that university chiefs have pocketed inflation-busting pay rises this year, and now earn more between £200,000 and £334,000.
But this is not the only question about value for money in higher education. According to figures from HESA for 2012-13, 6.2 per cent of students quit after only one year of study in Scotland. This compares with 5.7 per cent for England, 5.4 per cent for Wales and 6 per cent for Northern Ireland.
The taxpayer picks up the tab for those who abandon their studies – as well as for those who succeed.
But the figures also raise the question of whether or not the refusal to charge tuition fees is effectively devaluing higher education in the eyes of some young people.
The introduction of tuition fees in Scotland – for all of Mr Salmond’s rhetoric – is probably unavoidable in the future, if the quality of degrees is to be maintained. This may not be easy or politically attractive, but it is a reality the SNP has so far failed to confront.
Mr Salmond’s hubristic commemorative stone may yet have to be sent to the scrapyard.
As its spin in the White Paper revealed, the SNP views higher education as just another vehicle to advance its constitutional obsession – rather than an institution to be cherished.