Meeting of the Parliament 30 May 2017
Liz Smith will be well aware that the Scottish Government is investing more than £1 billion in the higher education sector. That demonstrates our commitment to the sector and our belief in the world-leading reputation of our higher education institutions.
Liz Smith talks about increasing the number of places as if there is a simple solution to widening access and all we have to do is increase the number of places. Of course, that debate is relevant and it should be had, but we must bear it in mind that other countries keep on increasing the number of places but still face the challenge of widening access. The commissioner brought that up when he told the Education and Skills Committee that increasing the number of places was not the answer to the widening access challenge.
Liz Smith has brought up displacement previously, but she does not recognise that what was demonstrated clearly in the commission’s work was that there is an inherent, systemic unfairness about the way in which we distribute publicly funded places. We cannot simply assume that the best people will get to university if we continue to increase the number of places; the issue is much more complex than that. The Government is continuing to invest in widening access places through the Scottish funding council, and that investment is paying dividends, but we need a much more detailed solution, which I expect to come through the framework for fair access that the commissioner is developing.
Finally, Liz Smith talked about comparisons with the UK. I urge some caution when people make such comparisons, not because the Scottish Government thinks that they are not helpful but because UCAS has also said that, as it means comparing two very different systems. For example, the English figures do not discuss the wide range of subjects that are provided in our college sector, and we simply cannot compare two different systems and not recognise the number of places in our college sector that lead to higher education. The commission recognised and made recommendations on that, and our officials are working with officials from across the UK on how to make genuine like-with-like comparisons with UK institutions. That is the only way that we can provide a better solution.