Students in a smarter Scotland

Albert Einstein once said we should never regard study as a duty, but as an enviable opportunity. It’s a statement that is undoubtedly true, and to university students battling to cram in lectures, tutorials, essays and other study, it must be easy to forget.

University can be a fairly hard slog. We often hear about the vibrant social life of Scotland’s students, and I know the brimming study calendar is more then enough to keep anyone busy. People’s student days are often referred to as the best of their life, but rarely are they labelled as quiet.

In amongst all the hustle and bustle of university life, students also face the daunting question of what they will do when they leave. It’s a natural apprehension, wondering how the skills and knowledge learned will transfer to the workplace.

I want to reassure Scotland’s university students that their efforts are central to this government’s vision of creating a smarter, more successful county.

People and their potential is any nation’s greatest asset. That’s why we are working to expand opportunities for all Scots to succeed, through university access, and by developing a lifelong learning agenda so everyone gets the chance to improve their skills.

For Scotland to be all it can be, then all our people need to develop skills, in the widest sense, so they can fulfill their potential. By increasing sustainable economic growth, we can create a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish.

Our university graduates have a crucial part to play in all of this. We know that our levels of research, innovation and the higher education system in general are regarded as world class.

Yet that doesn’t mean we will be complacent and by continuing to cultivate strong economic conditions we can create more opportunities for highly skilled graduates.

University is all about fostering and stretching ambition. In Scotland, we have a proud egalitarian tradition and I want to build on that, removing barriers that hold people back and giving more people the chance to realise their potential.

Education should be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay. We know the fear of debt can be a real deterrent, discouraging many promising students from going to university. That’s why this government has moved swiftly to scrap the unfair graduate endowment fee, ending the £2,289 charge for tens of thousands of students.

I firmly believe everyone should be given the chance to share in Scotland’s success. Fee costs can also be a particular barrier for part-time students. So, in December, we announced a package of £38 million in grants to help ease their debt burden. Not only will it relieve pressures on part-time students on low incomes but it will open up new opportunities for people considering part-time study to retrain or build their skills for the changing needs of our economy.

We are determined that opportunity should be extended as widely as possible. Scotland can be proud of its diverse, vibrant student community and we are building on that – providing opportunities for young asylum seekers and the children of asylum seekers to go to university and exploring better support for students who are disabled.

There are undoubtedly challenges facing universities in Scotland over the coming decades. We must ensure Scotland continues to be at the forefront of higher education provision, which is why we have set up the Future Thinking Taskforce to ensure the contribution of universities is optimised.

Making sure everyone can invest in and apply learning will also help to generate the attitudes, ideas and technologies to improve health, wellbeing and the environment. Such achievements will help drive wealth creation and fairness by putting opportunities to succeed within everyone's reach and making full use of people's skills.

This has to be about change in the system. Society has moved on from the days when people had to accept what they were offered. We must open learning and our institutions up to a new and wider range of learners. Learning to learn will be essential in the new knowledge economy. Candidates demonstrate their ability to exhibit intellectual ability and learning skills to a standard, depth and level which gives employers confidence in their ability to perform.

My vision for success in this area is very simple. I want to ensure that what you know matters more than who you know, that what you can do overrides what you can’t do and that where you’re going matters more than where you have come from.