We need to talk about funding higher education - Sue Webber

It is uplifting to see young people happy and optimistic when they discover their exam goals have been met and it was wonderful to learn the head boy at my old school Currie High, Shashank Swarna, got the Advanced Highers he needed to pursue a medical career

Lothian Tory MSP Sue Webber

All those school leavers who received their exam certificates this week deserve nothing but praise for the way they have handled two years of the worst possible disruption to their education, and so too do those dedicated teachers who adapted so quickly to remote learning to keep the lessons going. Nor can supportive parents be overlooked.

The six per cent rise in the number of Edinburgh fifth formers getting at least one higher compared to 2019 is unquestionably good news, but we can’t forget the 37 per cent who did not achieve any.

Nor do these results reveal the overall quality of the education our young people receive, and in line with the decline of the Scottish standards in the international Programme for Student Assessment (PISA) measurements, the numbers taking maths and science courses essential for the qualified workforce needed for a healthy economy were down. Over 1,000 fewer state school pupils sat Higher maths this year than last.

And no public relations spin should be allowed to gloss over the unfairness at all levels of Scottish school education as the SNP Government desperately tries to manipulate its way out of its inability to deal with inequality and falling standards.

That the poverty-related attainment gap between students from the most and least deprived areas is still 15 points, six years after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made its disappearance her “defining mission”, is by any definition an abject failure. And education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville’s refusal to recommit to that goal this week is a shameful admission of defeat.

This year’s Scottish Qualifications Authority statistics show the higher pass rate for students in the 20 per cent most deprived districts was 70 per cent compared to 85 in the 20 per cent most affluent, and that is even after pass marks have been lowered in poorer areas.

The result of post code grade manipulation on top of universities’ positive discrimination in favour of students from poorer areas ─ even if they are not themselves deprived ─ is that some straight A students from better-off localities are missing out on their chosen courses, even if they are not from a particularly comfortable family.

Underpinning it all is an under-funded higher education system which can’t cope with the number of young Scots making the grade, while maintaining capacity for non-Scots paying tuition fees.

It’s fair that allowances are made for difficult circumstances, but the SNP’s choices mean that some from relatively wealthy areas are being punished despite being in no more control of their backgrounds than the deprived.

The only fair solution is for the SNP Government to increase higher education funding because the current position leaves universities with no choice but to cram students into popular courses, cut valuable contact time and lower standards, or reject deserving candidates.

Our young people are the equal of their counterparts anywhere in the world, it’s time they had a nursery to-graduation education system to match.

Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative MSP for the Lothians and the Shadow Minister for Drugs Policy