EDUCATION Secretary Jenny Gilruth has said her party will “never” bring back tuition fees for Scots amid funding shortfalls at a number of Scottish universities.
It comes after the SNP minister was challenged about the state of the finances of several institutions including the University of Dundee, which announced on Tuesday it plans to cut 632 jobs in an effort to deal with a £35 million deficit.
Raising the issue during First Minister’s Questions last week, Conservative MSP Jamie Greene said eight out of Scotland’s 18 universities are in deficit, totalling £218 million.
Asked on the BBC’s Sunday Show if she agrees with a critical assessment that the current funding model Scottish universities rely upon is “unfair” and “unsustainable”, Gilruth suggested the particular challenges facing the University of Dundee are “ not a unique situation to Scotland”.
She said: “Our universities are facing an inordinate amount of challenge, but that’s not a unique situation to Scotland.
“If you look across the United Kingdom, Cardiff, Durham, Newcastle, [are] all considering substantial cuts to their workforce as a result of inflationary pressures.”
Quizzed on the reliance of foreign students paying tuition fees into the system – the numbers of which have fallen in recent years – in order to teach young Scots for free, Gilruth said her party will “never” bring back tuition fees for Scots.
She continued: “You want to isolate the issue of tuition fees and I simply say, that policy decision from the SNP is not going to change. We are not going to bring back tuition fees.”
Gilruth pointed to a combination of Brexit and changes to visa rules to have impacted the number of international students coming to study.
We told how the Scottish Parliament previously called on the UK Government to act on a bespoke Scottish visa scheme which would address “the needs of Scotland’s employers, communities and public services”.
Institutions are also battling with inflationary pressure.
