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English To Pay For Scots Education?
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has proposed education legislation which would lead to English students in Scotland having to pay for their courses, which Scots would receive a university education for free.
According to the Telegraph, the Scottish Nationalists' proposals would mean that the English, the Welsh and the Northern Irish would be the only students paying for further education in Scotland. It would be free to Scots, to EU nationals and to the children of asylum seekers who have been in Scotland for more than three years.
The Telegraph says that undergraduates from other parts of Britain will have to pay £1700 a year to study in Scotland. It seems, on the face of it, clearly discriminatory. EU law says other nations will receive free education; Scotland has deigned to grant free tuition to asylum seekers. But fellow Brits will be excluded because they aren't from separate EU nations? Sound bizarre.
Unfortunately, we've been unable to track down details of this story either on the ScotNat's website, on the site of the Scottish Parliament or in other media sources. That, of course, doesn't mean that it isn't true - it's just another example of the mainstream media refusing to link to sources of valuable background - but it is irritating nonetheless.
The BBC doesn't list the proposal on its round-up of the SNP's 11-point legislative plan for this parliamentary session. It does, however, list a Graduate Endowment (Abolition) Bill, whereby students who graduate from Scots universities do not have to fork out £2000, a scheme which has been described as a version of fees in reverse.
There is much ill-will in the rest of the UK to Scotland's decision to abolish fees for its students: English critics point to how the rest of the UK (read the English) pay for Scots to have a privilege which does not extend to English students. Scots respond that rather than being subsidised by the English, Scotland actually subsidises the UK with the oil which is pumped from its waters... and so on.
The English, from being mostly well-disposed towards their Northern neighbours, have started to grumble that they'd be better off without the Scots. Scottish support for football teams opposing England in 2006's World Cup Finals brought this matter to a head, though reports of anti-English racism in Scotland and English complaints about Scottish powers in the English parliament helped too.
The story went off the boil earlier this year, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Scottishness is thought to be a possible electoral liability among opposition supporters. Brown, as an MP for a constituency in Scotland, can vote on issues which affect England; the English, having granted the Scots their own executive - sorry, government - have no such say in Scotland.
Throwing another story about Scottish profligacy (with English money, naturally), which combines with anti-English sentiment among Scots keeps the wheels greased.
Of course, EURSOC would like to get to the bottom of this story, but we can't find an alternative source. If it is true that the English, Welsh and Northern Irish are the only people in Europe who must pay for a university education, it's unfair. The Scots, presumably, have to pay fees if they study in other British universities - is that the reason for the Scots system?
Any readers? Bueller? Bueller?
