Scotland worst in UK for state pupils going to university
Higher education becoming MORE elitist under SNP
SCOTLAND has the lowest percentage of state school pupils and college students winning university places in the UK – despite SNP attempts to make higher education less elitist. The Scottish Government boasts the system is more inclusive here because native Scots do not have to pay to study, while tuition fees have been introduced south of the Border.
But institutions in England have used the cash raised to fund bursaries for poorer students – meaning the proportion of state school university entrants in England has gone up, while falling over the past year in Scotland.
Ministers have pressured universities in Scotland into doing more to widen the social mix – but one Scottish university insider last night said this was ‘daft’ because of ‘deep-rooted problems in attainment’ in the state school sector.
The figures torpedo Nationalist rhetoric over the supposed equality in Scottish universities and raise questions over the SNP’s stewardship of higher education.
Scottish Tory young people spokesman Elizabeth Smith said: ‘This is yet another deeply worrying statistic which proves the SNP just isn’t doing enough to close the attainment gap or to increase opportunity among Scotland’s least privileged.’
Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed the proportion of Scottish university entrants from state schools and colleges in 2014-15 was 86.6 per cent, down from 87.4 per cent the previous year.
This compares with 89.6 per cent in England, up from 89.4 per cent; 92.4 per cent in Wales, up from 92.3 per cent; and 99.3 per cent in Northern Ireland, down from 99.4 per cent. The UK average was 89.8 per cent, up from 89.7 per cent.
A Scottish university insider said: ‘Expecting universities to compensate for deep-rooted problems in attainment at primary and secondary school level is a bit like running out of petrol and expecting that pumping your tyres up will solve the problem. It’s daft.
‘Scottish universities have been working their socks off to attract and support pupils from deprived areas but we are all fishing in a very, very small pool.’
The comments echo a warning from Professor Louise Richardson, former principal of St Andrews University and now vice-chancellor of Oxford University, who said last year: ‘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 looking 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 proportion of undergraduates at Edinburgh University from state schools or colleges in 2014-15 was 68.5 per cent, down from 69.6 per cent in 2013-14. At St Andrews University, the percentage fell from 59 per cent to 58.9 per cent.
An Edinburgh University spokesman said it had performed better on widening access using different yardsticks – pupils from poorer backgrounds rather than just from state schools – over a longer period of time. He said the percentage of state school entrants ‘had dropped slightly by 1 per cent’ but ‘the absolute number has increased’.
St Andrews University did not comment.
Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said: ‘The SNP budget cuts will only make this worse as local budgets take a hammering, with the education budget slashed by £130million.’
Higher education umbrella body Universities Scotland said there
‘Another deeply worrying statistic’ ‘Budget cuts will make this worse’
were ‘positives’ if different ways of measuring deprivation were used.
A spokesman said: ‘Universities are not complacent. We are committed to creating opportunities and want to offer places to students from low-income families, those at low progression schools, care l eavers and other underrepresented students.
‘None of these are captured in today’s data, which takes a very narrow view of under-represented students. Scotland needs a broad and inclusive measure to define widening access and track progress.
‘The Government’s Commission for Widening Access gives us an opportunity to do this and I hope this is grabbed with both hands when the commission reports in the spring.’