SNP’S social engineering targets risk brain drain
BRITAIN’S second most senior judge would have been rejected from his university law course had social engineering policies designed to meet SNP targets been in place when he was a teenager, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Lord Reed of Allermuir graduated from the University of Edinburgh’s renowned law school with a first class degree in 1978 and had a glittering legal career, becoming president of the Supreme Court in January 2020.
However, fears have been raised that equally brilliant scholars are now being excluded from top courses at Scottish universities as a result of the SNP’S strict cap on places coupled with targets that force institutions to take in more students from poor backgrounds.
It is warned that the situation is risking a brain drain for the country, where top middle-class students choose
to study at English universities, where it is easier to win places, and make their lives there instead. For last year’s intake, law at Edinburgh was effectively closed to students unless they had suffered some form of disadvantage or deprivation.
Lord Reed, who attended George Watson’s College, an Edinburgh private school, and grew up in middle-class suburbs in the south of the Scottish capital, would have been excluded regardless of his potential, had the same system been in force when he applied.
Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at Edinburgh, claimed that both the university and Scottish society faced being damaged as “future Lord Reeds” would choose to study in England where they would not face the same barriers.
“No high-quality university system can afford not to be giving opportunities to the best students, whatever their background,” Prof Paterson said.
A spokesman for the University of Edinburgh said that while it welcomed all applications, it took its commitment to widening access “very seriously”.