Educational lack

IT IS with great disappointment that I have read that the Scottish Government has removed funding from the country’s only educational psychology postgraduate course.

The decision to remove funding, potentially denying access to the only route into a profession, which is in continuous requirement by the local authorities of Scotland, leaves serious questions regarding the commitment from the SNP government to education.

The recent news that Edinburgh University has, for the first time, offered more undergraduate places to English students than Scots, re-affirms the narrowing avenues into higher education for Scottish students (Letters, 5 June).

The issue regarding educational psychology is further compounded by the knowledge that Westminster funds up to £50,000 a student in England, for the period of study, underlining the necessity of this profession to the future of our education system.

For myself, forging a graduate career in a leading Scottish financial services organisation, and my partner, an Oxford graduate, we are left with no choice but to move our careers and our future earnings to the south of England, before we have had as much as the opportunity to contribute to our home economy.

With my partner having received offers for the educational psychology programme both north and south of the Border, and with the preference being to stay in Scotland, the discrepancies in funding have removed any realistic possibility of us committing to a place here. The short-sightedness of this situation is highlighted in our circumstances, where we would more than repay any government funding through economic contributions within a decade.

Educational psychology in Scotland risks becoming a public service with a completely inequitable entry route, whereby only those who have the financial resources to self-fund can consider it as a possible career.

The effect of this will inevitably be the restricted calibre of psychologists entering the education system, thus compromising a commitment to improving outcomes for children, young people and families.

I sincerely hope the issue is revisited by the Scottish Government before autumn and before other top Scottish graduates are priced out of staying at home.

Jay MacCowan

Invergowrie

Dundee