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Plenary, 28 Oct 1999

28 Oct 1999 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

Scottish University for Industry

Johnston, Nick Con Mid Scotland and Fife Watch on SPTV

I hope that I can finish as eloquently as Mr McNeil.

Like my colleagues, I welcome the main strands of this initiative, while not being entirely sure what I am welcoming. To me, the whole project seems rather woolly and unfocused, but that could be because of my lack of skills—I find it very difficult to wade through waffle.

Like my colleagues, I have spoken to academics, who have made the point that this is not a university and that it has little to do with industry. I have spoken to industrialists, who express either bewilderment or indifference. The Scottish Council of National Training Organisations, the national training organisations' umbrella body, says in a paper submitted to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee:

"The Scottish University for Industry has the potential to

give the lead in localised delivery systems, although there seems some danger that it might be restricted to being a telephone help-line to a national database."

I would like the minister to tell us who in industry he has consulted on this project and what form that consultation took. Might we now examine the responses from business and industry? The minister might also take the trouble to explain why the development team included not one person from business or industry. Instead, the usual suspects have been hovering around to see how they can hoover up any available funding. Apparently, the development team consulted 70 organisations, but only about a dozen have any links with the world of business.

The published information makes it clear that SUFI is intended to become self-financing after three years. If that is the case, why is so much of its content based on higher and further education courses and not on industry suppliers of education, even though the latter was indicated as one of SUFI's aims?

The SUFI website has a discussion page, on which most of the questions have received answers. One question that has not been answered concerns the possible involvement of private education.

Other questions present themselves. Guidance for bids for learning centres has yet to be issued and a guide for the production of SUFI material will not be issued until later in the year. That was supposed to set a house style. Surely providers need that now, so that they can set up courses early.

My other concern is that the university for industry in England has set indicative targets of

2.5 million people accessing information services and 600,000 people being involved in programmes by 2002. No such targets seem to have been publicly released for SUFI. The following have all to be finalised: membership plans; the information and communications technology contract; the production of a corporate plan; and how SUFI will link with other learning centres and the national grid for learning.

I have some specific questions. How will we avoid the "second class" epithet that has been attached for 20 years to institutions such as the Open University? How does the Executive hope to break down academic snobbery about this project? How will the validation of life experience be undertaken, and how will we avoid the diploma disease? I was interested to see in the document a reference to community education. My wife works in community education and has very little information on the Scottish university for industry. The minister may want to take up that point.

I am interested in how inquiries will be followed up, so that we can see how people take up the opportunities that are on offer. I am particularly interested in whether the outcomes will be acceptable to business.

If those questions are answered to the satisfaction of the business community—

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Plenary, 28 Oct 1999

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