SNP must tackle Scotland's university crisis or it will never be forgiven

Scottish Government ministers’ talks with Dundee University about staving off massive job cuts are welcome but they need to be prepared to consider radical solutions to tackle the wider higher education funding crisis

Last month, The Scotsman urged the SNP government to consider an emergency rescue package for Dundee University after news it planned to cut 635 jobs because of a dire financial crisis.

Since then, the picture has become worse, with the university now saying it is looking at 700 job losses. However, government officials are at least in talks with the university’s management about ways to reduce that figure.

During a visit to its life sciences school, Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth said the number of cuts was “not palatable to ministers” and “we are asking the university to think again”. She added the university had been “open to that ask”, with its managers “working at pace with the Scottish Funding Council on different proposals”, while the Scottish Government was considering what more it could do to help.

University staff protest against planned job cuts in a rally outside the Scottish Parliament (Picture: Lisa Ferguson) | National World

We hope and expect real progress will be made to ensure this vital institution is not diminished on anything like the scale currently being considered. Gilruth may consider 700 job losses to be “not palatable”, but she should have said “entirely unacceptable”.

According to Dundee, there are several reasons for its problems including a "severe drop" in the number of international students, higher employers’ National Insurance contributions, inflation, “poor investment choices” by the previous university regime, and the underfunding of higher education. But the important thing right now is not the blame game but the preservation of a national asset.

While some of its problems appear to have been of its own making, the financial crisis at Dundee is also a symptom of a wider crisis affecting higher education, with Edinburgh planning to cut spending by a staggering £140 million.

Professor Peter Mathieson, Edinburgh’s Vice-Chancellor, recently warned that universities are “nearing – or toppling into – an economic abyss”, and called for “urgent and radical actions” to address the situation.

We welcome Gilruth’s apparent efforts but hope she understands that the seriousness of the situation means that free tuition – the main reason for university underfunding – must now be reconsidered.

If any of Scotland’s great institutions of higher learning are allowed to fall into an “abyss”, the SNP will never be forgiven.