University challenge we should all rise to

IHAD a ball at university. My three closest friendships were built in that first, heady term during long nights in the union downing pints of cider and black, and long days in the library blearily reading books with such terrifying titles as Critical Thought: A Concise Guide.

I did a useless degree, english Literature with a smattering of Philosophy and Classics, yet much of what I read and how I think today, more than 20 years later, was forged during tutorials discussing the Greek tragedies, or the latest Ian Mcewan novel, and cemented in conversations that went on in the pub afterwards.

I was surrounded by people older and smarter than I was, who came from such faraway places as Devon and Belfast, and had vastly different accents, educations and outlooks on life. It was all rather thrilling.

So while I didn’t much care for the tutor who seemed hell-bent on weaselling out the Marxist sensibilities of Sylvia Plath (there weren’t any) or the philosophy lecturer who took it personally if you were anything other than a hard-line atheist (I wasn’t), I think that my time among the ivory towers has made me a smarter, more rounded and interesting human being. Certainly, I don’t drink cider and black any more.

So it is alarming to see that going to university is fast becoming the preserve of the privileged. According to new figures, Scotland has the UK’s lowest percentage of state school pupils and college students winning university places. Instead of becoming more inclusive, education here is becoming more elitist. The figures are not massive, but the fact they have declined, by 0.8 per cent, in just one year, is still of concern. And it compares unfavourably with england, where despite the introduction of tuition fees, universities are seeing a rise in students from state schools – something partly explained by the fact that some of those fees have been used to fund bursaries for poorer students.

University probably isn’t for everybody, and I worry sometimes that we don’t ensure that young people do what they are best suited for: be it teaching them a trade, sending them off to a skilled apprenticeship or simply getting them into a half decent job. Ultimately though, this is about choice.

It is the choice to have the life-changing experience that is tertiary education, no matter what your background. The choice to learn what critical thought is, to meet people who are smarter than you and will challenge you, and to confront ideas and beliefs that you have never encountered before. University is about growing ourselves as people, as much as it is about learning what the Cartesian principle is (spoiler alert: I think therefore I am about covers it).

Scotland is meant to be a country of equality and opportunity. Surely that must start with the education available to its children.