Hansard

I applaud the committee for its report, which augurs well for its inquiry into lifelong learning. Alex Neil has an enquiring mind and he should not resist the temptation to rampage through our universities. To some, doing so might not be a bad thing.

I agree with the committee on many points, but I want to mention my support for funding for level 3-rated research departments in particular.

I want to talk about two areas—independence and widening access. Both topics are dealt with in the committee's report. Universities are private and independent institutions. They cannot be privatised—they are already private and independent, albeit they receive public funds. An acceptance of that will, of necessity, constrain the public policy that we shape in Edinburgh and that is shaped in London.

The committee talked about devolving powers to universities, but it did not recommend devolving further powers to safeguard public funds. A further debate is to be had on that.

I want to draw colleagues' attention to a book published by the Institute of Economic Affairs called "Buckingham at 25", which deals with the experience of public funding in British universities, particularly in respect of the University of Buckingham. The book says:

"Adam Smith was teaching at Glasgow University 250 years ago, and students then paid teachers whose lectures they attended directly. When the University offered him a salary to recognise his fame and success, he declined the offer, so strong was his belief in market principles. He had seen how inferior Oxford and Cambridge had become at that time, compared to the Scottish universities, and he attributed this to the fact that their academics enjoyed guaranteed salaries, which the Scottish universities could not afford; in Scotland they had to respond to their ‘market'."

Lecturers listening to or reading about the debate will be relieved to know that I am not suggesting that we return to such a directly funded system for lecturing—that might be a disappointment to my colleagues. However, there is an analogy in that universities are more or less on a guaranteed income. We debate in the committee, at SHEFC and using other opportunities the fine tuning of planning that income. Our universities must not be monolithic. Lecturers and students must have academic freedom and there must be management freedom to develop new courses and markets. The scope for devolution within public funding will be revisited by the Conservative party, if not by Parliament.

The Conservative party endorses the principle of widening access, but that principle is not new. It has existed since the inception of universities and is one to which we must rededicate ourselves time and again to ensure that it is applied in today's context. We must continually review the social, economic and cultural context in which universities operate. We endorse the widening of access, but we will question the Scottish Government's approach to reaching its goals.

I want to give an example. The University of Edinburgh is regularly criticised in news reports for not having enough Scottish students and for being relatively elitist—the same is often said of the University of St Andrews. There is criticism of the socioeconomic base of their undergraduates. However, we know that there is a bias on the west coast of Scotland against attending universities on the east coast—that is evidenced by the University of Glasgow's historically being that with the most home-based students.

The bias ensures that Edinburgh and St Andrews always draw from a smaller pool of Scottish talent than is available, making it highly likely that English students form a higher proportion of undergraduates than might be expected. That skews the debate about widening access at those universities. However, there is no short-term answer for that cultural attitude—no task force can immediately resolve it.

If we want truly to widen access, we must examine secondary, primary and nursery school education. Only this week I visited Smithycroft Secondary School in Glasgow, which is part of that city's pilot programme for community learning. The programme gives greater devolved management to pre-school centres and primary schools that are clustered around a secondary school. They share a common educational approach and have a bursar who takes the administrative load from the head teacher. They can and do take their own educational initiatives and, crucially, are able to work right from the early years, at pre-school level, with early intervention programmes.

That is how we must first approach widening access. By equipping pupils with the ability to gain entrance to higher education in the first place, we will surely widen access far more completely and openly than at the moment. Without opening access in schools, all initiatives to change cultural attitudes—such as special schemes to recruit undergraduates and better financial packages for students—will come to nought.