Free tuition is not up for sacrifice — Scotland must protect education |
Those urging tuition fees claim it’s “realism”. In truth, it’s a retreat that would punish the poorest and weaken Scotland’s future workforce, says Roz Foyer
We seem a fair distance away from the halcyon days of “education, education, education.”
A new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has revealed that, in the next Parliament, Scottish Government ministers face an unenviable task in balancing the books.
The impending ‘Barnett squeeze’, as the authors of the report framed it, whereby the funding advantage Scotland receives, relative to England, through the Barnett formula is decreasing. Coupled with an anticipated general slowdown in UK Government public sector funding, this ‘Barnett Squeeze’ seems far more akin to a straitjacket than a squeeze.
This has, predictably, reignited the conversation on what Scotland can and can’t afford to pay for in the current climate, with free university tuition now firmly within the crosshairs for cutting.
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Education funding isn’t fair game for execution. It’s intrinsic to the social contract that we have all signed via the Scottish rate of income tax that comes out of our wages every month.
That’s not to say that the higher education sector doesn’t face unmitigated financial pressures – it does.
We aren’t averse to delivering praise when praise is due. When the Finance Secretary was on her feet last month delivering the Scottish Budget to the nation,........