Meeting of the Parliament 03 June 2015
My constituency has two universities within its boundaries: Edinburgh Napier University and Heriot-Watt University. I take great interest in both institutions not only because I am a member of the Education and Culture Committee but because my sons graduated from those universities.
Edinburgh Napier University is in the top 20 UK universities for graduate employability, with 95 per cent of undergraduates and 92 per cent of postgraduates in employment or further study six months after graduating. Importantly, it has worked over many years with partners to build aspirations for higher education among people from low-participation neighbourhoods and non-traditional backgrounds. Community engagement takes place in schools and colleges and resulted in 2,292 students joining Edinburgh Napier University directly from Scottish colleges in 2013-14.
Heriot-Watt University is ranked second in Scotland and 18th in the UK by The Guardian university guide, although the UK ranking hides the fact that it is second in the UK for civil engineering and third in the UK for electronics and electrical engineering as well as for accounting and finance. To encourage a widening of access to its courses, Heriot-Watt University awards £6 million in scholarships and bursaries to more than 400 students each year.
As other speakers have said, Scotland is a leading nation in higher education, with four universities in the world’s top 200 and each of our higher education institutions undertaking research of world-leading quality. That is, in part, due to the funding that our universities have received in recent years from the Scottish Government. Last year and this year, the Scottish Government is providing more than £1 billion per annum to the higher education sector. Given that level of investment of public funds in universities, something would be amiss if the Scottish Government did not take an interest in the sector.
The “Report of the Review of Higher Education Governance in Scotland”, which was submitted to the Scottish ministers in January 2012, highlighted why governance is important:
“Universities in today’s world play many roles of direct significance to society, going well beyond the personal interests of those embarking on higher education, well beyond the organisational ambitions of individual institutions, and well beyond the expectations of those who employ graduates. They stimulate economic development; they provide a focus for cultural growth; they are engines of social regeneration; they play a major part in establishing a positive view of Scotland internationally. Universities are major employers and providers of livelihoods, and they own and control buildings, land and infrastructure that are vital assets for communities. They instigate and nourish public debate, and provide necessary critical analysis of the ideas and actions of public bodies and politicians.
For all these reasons, university governance is not just a private matter. Indeed, the public interest in university governance arguably extends beyond that which applies to corporate governance in the business world. It is not just a question of assuring the integrity and transparency of processes, it is a question of allowing society to protect its broader investment in education, knowledge and intellectual innovation in a way that makes the most of a long Scottish tradition adapted to the needs of the 21st century world.”
Our higher education institutions should reflect the society that we live in and, as the NUS Scotland president-elect stated in the press recently,
“As public bodies, rightly in receipt of well over a billion pounds every year, we want to see our universities open themselves up to greater transparency, democracy and accountability, staying relevant to and representative of the people they serve.
The proposed reforms to higher education governance give us a great opportunity to ensure that happens.”
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