Scottish independence: under Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’ Alex Salmond, Scotland’s top universities have failed to widen access to the poor, Tartan Tory Salmond has no interest in helping the poorest advance in society, figures expose the ‘big lie’!

Dear All

In case you don’t know, this is worth reminding you, Scotland is a corrupt country under the Scottish National Party.

One of the tricks used by the SNP is to talk about ‘fairness, equality and social justice’ and band about the word "aspiration".

Bullshit that you can be anything you can be anything you want to be!

Well, the truth is, you can’t, and no more so is this true than at Scotland’s elite universities. 

Scotland’s elite universities have failed to significantly increase the proportion of students recruited from deprived areas.

When the issue of discrimination pops up; the SNP get vexed and make noise to distract people from the fact that they aren’t going to do anything.

The Poor face a hard time of getting into university from a deprived background than the rich, and there are barriers, one such barrier is the interview system, this is used in subjects such as dentistry and medicine.

The reality is that this screens out pretty much all of the deprived making it.

Having spent 20 years at Glasgow University, I saw the odd person from a working class background get into subject like medicine and dentistry.

Figures released today by the Scottish Funding Council show that 9.7 per cent of Scottish entrants came from the most challenging socio-economic backgrounds in 2012/13, up from 9.1 per cent the previous year.

The poor make up the bulk of the population.

Laughingly, the press has been suckered into believing that there has been concerted effort by the Scottish Government.

If you are poor, the best option for you is college.

You stand more chance of getting in because rich kids go to uni but given the SNP has cut over 80,000 colleges places, how can the press believe that there has been a ‘concerted effort’?

Talk about being socially unaware.

The fact is that the SNP haven’t challenged elite universities on admission in any real sense, they don’t want to rock the boat with the rich.

The SFC figures showed that overall entrants from the most deprived areas remain over-represented in Scotland’s colleges and under-represented in universities, which is what I said above.

Gordon Maloney, president of the National Union of Students in Scotland, said:

“While any increase in the numbers of students coming from our most deprived communities should be welcome, the reality is that these figures show little progress on previous years”.

And we will be having the same discussion in 5 years time, and in a decade after that, there is no political will to help the poor, either pre or post Holyrood.

Maloney added:

“We know universities can’t do it all on fair access, but they can, and must, do more than this. On the basis of UK-wide figures, Scotland remains the worst on access in the whole of the UK, and while that doesn’t take account of the excellent work our colleges do on fair access to higher education, it is a record we simply cannot tolerate any more. What’s even more disappointing is that, for all their warm words, many of our most ‘elite’ institutions have stalled, if not gone backwards.”

Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland (ex Glasgow Uni), said:

“Every university is deeply committed to widening access to all students with the potential to benefit from higher education”.

Sim has been talking the same fucking rubbish on this topic for years; Universities Scotland is just an apologist mouthpiece.

Sim added:

“Today’s figures are real proof of that as close to half of the increase in last year’s undergraduate intake are students from the 40 per cent most deprived areas of Scotland. That is an additional 290 additional students from deprived neighbourhoods. It’s important to remember that this increase comes a year before the additional access places created by the Scottish Government come into effect. We can expect to see a step change in next year’s data.”

Let me home in to the real point, he is talking about 290 additional poor students getting in.

290!

Sound like “real proof” of a concerted effort?

One thing is certain, things for the poor aren’t getting any better under the Scottish National Party with Alex Salmond and unpopular Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, they won’t stand up for working class Scots. This story illustrates that there is more reason to vote No and thus keep access to opportunities in the rest of the UK for the poor. 

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University