SNP fund 1000 fewer university places

The Scottish Government has come under attack as it announced that over 1000 less students would be funded through university this academic year.

129,733 undergraduate and postgraduate students are being funded for in 2010/2011, 1,066 fewer than the previous year.

The news comes as demand for undergraduate places in the UK is at an all time high, with students breaking A-level and SQA Higher records yet again.

It is expected around a thousand applicants will miss out on a place as the number of places has not risen in conjunction with the number of applicants.

Scottish Labour described the figures as “incredibly concerning” and criticised Education Secretary Michael Russell.

The SNP Government rebuffed Labour’s attack as a “deliberate attempt to mislead people” and said the drop in places was a result of a planned cut in teacher training places.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) announced in February the number of places for teacher training would fall by forty per cent, from 3,857 in 2009-10 to 2,307 in 2010-11.

In response to the SFC’s announcement, NUS Scotland President Liam Burns said: “Scotland can't carry on with this boom and bust method of teacher training. With cuts to education departments at universities across Scotland we could lose very talented lecturers, irreparably damaging departments that have built expertise in training teachers over many years.”

Speaking to The Journal, a spokesman from Edinburgh Napier denied they had encountered difficulties as a result of these cuts: “The number of government-funded undergraduate places at Edinburgh Napier was the same this year as last.

“There was however an increased demand for those places. Our applications were up by forty nine per cent, which is partly because of our strong reputation for graduate employability. The vast majority of our courses, therefore, closed to new applicants on the UCAS deadline of 22 January 2010."