Meeting of the Parliament 26 March 2024
It is a privilege to open this debate for Scottish Labour. I thank the minister for bringing it to the chamber, because widening access to education is close to my heart, and I believe that it is a priority that we all share.
It is therefore right that we take the opportunity to celebrate the progress that our institutions have made. They met the interim targets for entrants from students from disadvantaged backgrounds; there has been a rise in the number of young people entering university from care-experienced backgrounds; more disabled people are going to university; and more young people are progressing from further education into higher education.
However, we must also accept the reality. I know from conversations that I have had with institutions, students and staff how committed they all are to the cause of widening access, but, like me and my Labour colleagues, they are becoming increasingly concerned that progress is stalling and that the challenges that they face and that lie ahead will make regaining momentum ever more difficult.
The Scottish National Party Government has sought to use this discussion to pat itself on the back, but this is not a time for complacency. It talks about widening access and supporting higher education institutions, while signing off on a budget that cut £100 million from the sector and at least 1,200 places. The Government’s own analysis has warned that those cuts could have a direct impact on widening access. There are cuts to funding and cuts to places; there is an overreliance on cross-subsidy from international students; and institutions are facing impossible choices. That is this Government’s record. The president of NUS Scotland called it right when she said that, if education is this Government’s priority, it has
“a funny way of showing it.”
The Government’s actions are risking progress. We know—and students, staff, colleges and universities know—that the issue is not just about places and admissions; we need to support students on their entire education journey. There has long been a retention gap between the most affluent and least affluent students, but, worryingly, retention rates are beginning to fall again, in particular for those with widening access markers. Prospective students who are currently considering university need to know that they will get the support that they need so that they can emerge at the other end of their studies ready to contribute to society and move on to successful careers.
However, the impact of the past few years, with the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, has meant that, now more than ever, students require increased levels of support. The pressures of academic life, financial worries and isolation are taking a heavy toll on their wellbeing. NUS Scotland talks about those pressures in its “Broke Students, Broken System” report on the five pillars of education, and it is right—it is not just what happens in the classroom that matters, and we cannot forget that.
Against that backdrop, Scotland’s universities have been grappling with successive years of real-terms cuts from this Government, at a time when outside pressures necessitate more support for their students. The result is that vital support services are overstretched and underresourced. The number of students who request mental health support at university increased threefold between 2010 and 2021. While universities are doing their best to meet that challenge, they are being asked to do more with less, and that is having an impact on retention rates.
What we have is a sector that is held back by this Government, and a funding crisis that is not just isolated in universities, but which extends to colleges, too. It is a crisis that students and staff at colleges have been telling this Government about for years, but it has refused to listen.
I say to the Government today: listen to staff and students at universities and colleges, who are desperate for their sector to be saved.