Hansard

Scotland has a world-class higher education sector. We currently have five universities in the top 200 in the world and, each year, students from around 200 nations choose to come to our institutions to study.

It is our belief that a child growing up in Scotland should, regardless of their background, have an equal chance of attending one of our great universities. I am also clear that widening access is about access to not just fresher fairs, but graduation day and beyond. Ensuring that students from the most deprived areas of Scotland are supported to achieve their aspirations into, through and beyond higher education is at the core of that. Those end goals of graduation and positive destinations are central to our thinking as we deliver the commission on widening access’s recommendations and they are a key focus and priority for the Government.

Setting out her first programme for government, the First Minister made a crucial commitment when she told the chamber that our task was to ensure that

“a child born today in one of our most deprived communities has no less a chance of going to university than a child born in one of our least deprived communities.”—[Official Report, 1 September 2015; c 20.]

She did so because we consider that education is by far the most effective means that we have to improve the life chances of and to deliver the best possible outcomes for everyone.

We have enshrined the principle of widening access in legislation, placing it at the core of what we expect from post-16 institutions and the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council; we continue to invest £51 million a year to support places for access students and those transferring from college into university; and, in 2015, we established the commission on widening access, the recommendations of which we accepted in full.

Since the publication of “A Blueprint for Fairness: The Final Report of the Commission on Widening Access” in 2016, we have embedded our targets within university outcome agreements, introduced a full non-repayable bursary of £7,625 for young care-experienced students and established an access delivery group to oversee delivery. To support that work, we have provided universities with a real-terms budget increase of 1.9 per cent.

We are making progress. Last December, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service reported that Scotland had reached a new record for the number of acceptances—the only part of the United Kingdom to see an increase. The acceptance rate for 18-year-olds also reached a record high, increasing for the third year in a row. More significantly, UCAS reported a record rise in the number of 18-year-olds from our most deprived communities being accepted. In total, the number of Scots from the most deprived communities getting places to study at a Scottish university increased by 13 per cent. That means that more than 600 additional people from the most deprived communities were accepted to study at university. We have a record number of Scots going to university and a record number of Scots from the most deprived communities going to university—that is progress.

Sitting behind that progress is a change in perception. We are eating away at the idea that going to university is not something that any child with the ability can achieve. In fact, just last month UCAS revealed:

“Scottish 18 year olds from the most disadvantaged areas are 67 per cent more likely to apply in 2018 than 12 years ago.”

However, we must maintain and, indeed, quicken the pace of change.

Professor Sir Peter Scott’s voice and the challenge that he—as the independent commissioner for fair access—provides to us all are crucial, as he not only provides a fresh perspective on the issues that are central to the widening access agenda, but continues to drive forward change. I thank Sir Peter for his work over the past year. He has established the role of commissioner as one that provides a significant contribution to access in Scotland.

Today’s statement provides an opportunity for me to respond to the commissioner’s first annual report. The majority of the commissioner’s recommendations relate to areas that we are already driving forward as a result of the commission on widening access. Sir Peter has provided valuable advice on implementation and encouraged bolder steps to be taken by the Scottish Government, the Scottish funding council and, in his words, “most institutions”.

I will first respond to the commissioner’s call for the Government to make clearer its priorities on our targets and ambitions for access.

This Government recognises that Scotland’s colleges are a key part of our higher education system and that they play a crucial and valued role in widening access. Colleges often provide the first step into further and higher education. Although they are a valued place of study in their own right, they can also be a stepping stone on to degree-level study at university. However, we are also clear that students from the most deprived backgrounds are well represented in colleges. The greatest inequalities lie in our universities, so I am clear that we will continue to prioritise access to university in our work and our targets for fair access. I reiterate once again that, no matter their background or circumstances, applicants should have an equal chance of going to university by 2030.

When we talk about fair access to university, I do not just mean fair access to some universities. We expect every university to take action now to ensure that, by 2021, 10 per cent of entrants to each university are from Scotland’s 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds. Through the access delivery group, we will continue to see progress towards meeting those targets, but members should be assured that I will look to the Scottish funding council to use the outcome agreement process to ensure that delivery is achieved.

I make it clear that our targets are for learners of all ages. Adult students should and will be given the same priority as school leavers from similar backgrounds in our work on fair access. The framework for fair access will identify the best methods through which to support adult learners into higher education, and I expect learners of all ages to be considered in the work to develop a more co-ordinated approach to access across Scotland.

My vision is of an efficient and flexible tertiary education system in Scotland, which supports all learners to succeed. Our work on the learner journey is examining how we can better connect the different parts of our education system and ensure that learners’ previous education is recognised fairly. I welcome the commissioner’s recommendations on those areas and his insights into how the system can better support learners from our most disadvantaged communities.

As we take forward our work on the learner journey, we will take account of the commissioner’s recommendations on the importance of access within that journey, the need to make more imaginative use of first year at university, and the option for learners with advanced highers to go directly into second year at university, should they wish to do so. The commissioner also made recommendations on articulation, contextualised admissions and bridging programmes, which I fully support.

Universities have committed to taking action on all those points, but we need further clarity on when changes will occur. In each area, universities need to pick up the pace of change and implementation.

I welcome the detailed work that has been put into the development of implementation plans by lead delivery partners, in all those areas, which will be discussed at the next meeting of the access delivery group. However, as with the overall and institutional targets that I mentioned, I will look to the Scottish funding council to intensify its work in those areas, if that is required.

I fully accept the commissioner’s recommendations for the Scottish funding council. This Government recognises the pivotal role that the funding council must play if we are to deliver fair access. I wrote to its chair in October last year to set out my expectations and ambitions for the 2018-19 outcome agreements, and in recent discussions with the funding council I have made clear the way in which I expect it to lead and co-ordinate delivery of a number of recommendations from the commission on widening access.

The commissioner asked the Scottish Government to consider any savings that will be produced by a reduction in demand for places from European Union students. We will take future decisions on the higher education budget as part of our annual budgetary process. However, for anyone in the sector who might be thinking that there is a short cut to achieving our targets through a drop in demand elsewhere, let me be very clear: there is no short cut and there is no magic bullet; widening access will require systemic change. The targets and timescales that we have all accepted from the commission on widening access will not be delivered in any other way.

I note the commissioner’s recommendations on an increase in funded places. I fully understand why the recommendation has been made and we will continue to consider its merits. We are conscious, however, that we are engaged in reforming the system and that that is best achieved by the fairer distribution of publicly funded opportunities. In the end, widening access will be achieved by building a fairer system rather than by continually expanding an unfair system.

Our ambition is for equality throughout the system. By that, I mean equality in relation to not just access but completion of and success in studies, equality in the jobs that access graduates can enter once they have finished their degrees, and an equal chance for those people and their children to succeed. Only then can we create a fairer Scotland.