WHEN the Scottish Government announced an extra £7million for college bursary and support funds at the beginning of the year, there were warnings that, while the money was welcome, it was a short-term fix. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the student body NUS Scotland all said the extra money would see students through to the end of the year, but that the system of college bursaries remained flawed and under-funded. A solution was needed.
A year on, those warnings look prescient, with demand for discretionary support payments from college students outstripping the amount of available money. The latest figures show that over the last three years, applications for bursaries and childcare allowances rose 15 per cent while the amount of support available increased by only five per cent. It means many students are receiving less than the maximum amount of support to which they are entitled, and others are going without entirely.
The Scottish Government may well respond to this crisis by offering more funding, although its record on colleges is not good. The further education sector is vital for meeting Scotland's skills shortage, but its funding has shrunk and the consequences of the rationalisation of the sector are still to be seen. The bottom line is that compared to the university sector, Scotland's colleges have seen an assault on their finances.
More money will be needed to fix the problem, but what is also needed is a reorganisation of the bursary system to ensure there is consistency across the sector. Under the present system, payments are discretionary which means there are big differences in bursaries between students and colleges. Switching to a system based on entitlement, as Colleges Scotland suggests, would bring colleges into line with the university sector, but would also be fairer on students too. It would also be demonstration from the Scottish Government that it is serious about supporting – and growing - the further education sector.
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