University fees policy was just an electoral bribe

IT is no surprise that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have not gained from the SNP Government’s policy on higher education (“University access drive puts squeeze on the less well-off”, December 31).

The much-lauded higher education fees policy was “sold” to the electorate on a progressive platform which claimed it would help boost social inclusion in Scotland and promote social mobility.

However, the truth is now unequivocally out. This was nothing but an electoral bribe to the well-off which had nothing whatsoever to do with such an objective.

As a former member of the Scottish Funding Council’s Access and Inclusion Committee I saw, over many years, precious little real commitment from higher education establishments to improving access in favour of the less well-off.

Such that there was came almost exclusively from the “recruiting” universities and almost never from those able to “select” (unless, of course, there was an enticing monetary bribe involved).

It is indeed ironic that the “free” higher education policy has been paid for by slaughtering the budgets of Scotland’s FE colleges and imposing a ridiculous process of mergers (from which nobody has ever been able objectively to identify any consequential “saving”).

Colleges could have played a critical role in training the skilled workforce the Scottish economy desperately needs and in providing an access route to higher education for adults and young people who may not, for whatever reason, have been successful academically at school. Regrettably, colleges are now merely a shadow of what they were and almost incapable of playing any meaningful role in lifelong learning or in the creation of a more equal Scotland. Ian Graham 6 Lachlan Crescent Erskine