Our Ref IAJ/RMcM
21 December 2005
Lindsay Conn
Scottish Executive
ETLL Department
Higher Education and Science Division
Europa Building
450 Argyle Street
GLASGOW G2 8LG
Dear Lindsay
DRAFT STUDENT FEES (SPECIFICATION)(SCOTLAND) ODER 2005
This is Glasgow Caledonian University's response to the consultation issticd with your letter of 16 November following consideration by our Court and Senate . Our response can be in the public record - see your Annex G attached .
We have responded to previous consultations on this subject and our comments (attached here) remain valid, and we would wish them to be taken fully into account.
However, additionally, we would wish to point out that the Order is unlikely to be finalised before 1 June 2006, but students are applying now for admission in September 2006 . For medical schools the UCAS admissions process has already closed . This means students have had to make decisions on vague and conditional information . The best course of action for the Executive would be to defer the introduction to 07/08. In addition to giving students definitive information on which to make decisions, this would allow an assessment to be made by the Executive of the actual effect on student demand of top-up fees in England, not guesses as at present.
We remain concerned that :
i the Executive has introduced the principle of varying fees by subject and may attempt to manipulate the market in other subjects later.
ii students from less well-off families in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be put off from studying in Scotland.
iii Students from the EU will be encouraged to study in Scotland rather than England, therefore displacing Scottish students which is the outcome the Executive is seeking to avoid.
iv Unpredictable turbulence in student numbers at each institution in Scotland will be introduced, though this could be mitigated by SFC extending the current flexibility in the cap on full-time numbers to, say, ±5%.
v Differentiating students from Lockerbie, Dublin and Brussels, on the one hand, who pay no fees, from students from Carlisle, Belfast and Cardiff on the other hand who will is hard to justify and potentially challengeable.
We are led to believe by Universities Scotland that the Executive intends that students paying these enhanced fees will be entitled, on a family means-tested basis, to £300 bursaries pa. This is welcome, in principle, but the lack of clarification of how this will operate in practice will reduce its impact in the first year . Also, the evidence in England is that because the topup fees are paid direct to the Universities, most Universities intend to use part of these additional resources to offer supplementary bursaries above the obligatory £300 . This opportunity will not be available to Universities in Scotland because the Executive intends to reduce the grant to Universities to exactly offset the extra fee income . So, Scottish Universities will have no funding for supplementary bursaries.
For all these reasons we believe it would be preferable not to proceed with these selective top-up fees and instead to marginally increase the cap and review the position in October 2006.
Yours sincerely
DR IAN JOHNSTON CB DL
Principal and Vice-Chancellor
Encs Annex G
Previous GCU submission
Respondent Information Form : Consultation On The Draft Student Fees (Specification) (Scotland) Order 2005
Please complete the details below and return it with your response . This will help ensure we handle your response appropriately. Thank you for Your help.
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ON BEHALF O F GROUPS OR ORGANI SATIONS :
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SHARING RESPONSES/FUTURF, ENGAGEMENT
4 We will share your response internally with other Scottish Executive policy teams who may be addressing the issues You discuss . They may wish to contact you again in the future, but we require your permission to do so . Are you content for the Scottish Executive to contact you again in the future in relation to this consultation response ?
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