‘Victory for students’ at Scottish Parliament

NUS Scotland has welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision to protect bursary funding in colleges as a “victory for students”.

John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, had previously proposed an £11.4m reduction in funding during last year’s draft budget.

NUS Scotland president, Robin Parker, said he was “delighted” the Scottish Government had since listened to the concerns of the 'Our Future, Our Fight' campaign to protect college funding.

Mr Parker said: “The campaign generated over 80,000 emails to MSPs which shows the huge strength of feeling Scotland has for its colleges. The Scottish Government has listened to MSPs across the parliament, and people across the country, and has acted to protect some of the poorest students in the poorest communities. We're delighted and fully welcome that.

"The asks of the campaign were to protect student support, places, local access to colleges and quality. I'm delighted to say that the Scottish Government has delivered to protect opportunities at this difficult time”.

The SNP Government says it has set out a “budget for growth”, with £45m going to affordable housing, £72m to roads projects, an extra £94m to local government and £19.5m for student support. Mr Swinney said the budget takes “direct action” to tackle unemployment, particularly youth unemployment.

However, Ken Macintosh, Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman, insisted the budget did not go far enough to “galvanize” the economy, claiming there was “no sign” of the SNP Government “taking all possible steps to protect jobs and create employment”.

Commenting on the rest of the budget, NUS Scotland’s Robin Parker said: "This Budget provides additional funding to universities, it keeps Scotland free of tuition fees, it protects the EMA, it begins to provide the money needed for a £7,000 minimum income for the poorest higher education students and, following today's debate, it now also provides the money we need for the poorest college students. This is all great news.

"However, colleges are facing large cuts on top of even bigger cuts last year. There may well be savings generated through restructuring the college sector but it remains to be seen whether these savings are large enough to protect students, and the front line, from damage.

"We'll be keeping an incredibly close eye on how colleges fare over this year to ensure that where cuts are made they're made in a way that doesn't affect college students at the local level".

In an interview with the Times Educational Supplement, Scottish Labour Leader Johann Lamont was asked whether she believed a graduate contribution to education was “inevitable”, to which she replied:

“Certainly, I wouldn't be in favour of upfront tuition fees. But if you're funding your determination not to have a graduate contribution on a 20 per cent cut to further education, a political debate is needed around that.

"I'm not rushing to have a graduate contribution, but if current policy means colleges will not serve the needs we want, and lots of people continue to be deterred from higher education, there's a problem”.

Responding to the comments, the SNP claimed it was now the only party that could be trusted to protect free education in Scotland. SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central, Marco Biagi, said: “It was the Labour-Liberal coalition that introduced back-door tuition fees in Scotland – which were then abolished by the SNP – and Labour which brought in tuition fees south of the border.

"Iain Gray claimed before the Holyrood elections last year that they would support free education, but that commitment has lasted less than a year".

However, critics of the SNP policy are quick to point out the SNP Government's decision to raise tuition fees to £9,000 for Rest of UK (RUK) students. This issue, according to critics, makes Scotland the most expensive place for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland to study in the whole of Europe.

NUS Scotland is continuing to campaign against this stance by the Scottish government on the issue of RUK fees.