Middle-class teens ‘suffer under SNP student cap’
MIDDLE-CLASS teenagers have been missing out on university places due to the SNP’s cap on Scottish students, the principal of St Andrews University warned yesterday.
Professor Sally Mapstone said young people were failing to secure places on their desired courses due to the Scottish Government’s ‘capped numbers policy’.
She defended a new policy – which has seen universities publish two sets of entry requirements – insisting that this alone would not lead to potential students missing out. The move will see lower requirements for people applying from poor backgrounds.
Concerns have been raised that this could lead to middle-class youngsters losing out on places to people from less well-off areas despite having the exam passes needed for university.
Professor Mapstone said: ‘Contextual admission does not in itself disadvantage anyone. It is the coexistence of a capped numbers policy that does that.’
She said Scottish universities had ‘operated contextual admissions systems for
‘Exam grades alone are not best indicator’
many years’ because it was the ‘responsible thing to do’.
She added: ‘Exam grades alone are not the best indicator of those most likely to succeed, unless life circumstances are also taken into account. Competition for places at our most selective universities is more intense and has more profound social consequences than ever before.’
A surge in demand for university places in the past decade has seen more than 15,000 youngsters turned away.
Scottish Conservative education spokesman Liz Smith said the SNP’s cap on places means ‘many very well-qualified school-leavers in Scotland will lose out [on] university entrance in Scotland’.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Access thresholds are about raising standards by ensuring talent is evaluated fairly and they have the potential to make a significant contribution to reducing inequalities in higher education.
‘The number of Scots winning a place at university is at a record high, as is the number of students attending university from the most deprived backgrounds.’