I loathe the Scottish Government

[Dineasair]

I loathe the Scottish Government. I want to see the SNP/Green Party coalition roast in hell! They can take any MSP who voted for the Gender Reform Bill or the Hate Crime Laws with them. Is it now a hate crime for a Scottish Woman to say that?

The Greens are threatening to pull their support for the budget which could mean the government falls.

Its too early for a Christmas present!

😂 Even if it doesn't happen I am enjoying the thought of the Nats running around like headless chickens. Although heads in the sand is probably more accurate since they seem to have know understanding of the predicament they are in.

*no understanding!

Their phones will all be buzzing tonight . It would be a dream come true if we don’t have to suffer this mob for another 2 years . Doubt Labour will be hugely more competent but they can’t be worse .

🙏🏻 🙏🏻 🙏🏻

I've been moaning about the lack of Uni places for Scottish students for a while, but if the free places go, would that mean that Scottish students actually have to pay more as they do 4 years, or would they have to do AH before they start and increase the standard before they get to Uni so the courses could be cut to 3 years?

A lot of the courses could be cut to three years already.

When I went to university the vast majority of my year doing law (at one of the ancient universities) did a 3 year ordinary degree. My husband's first degree , a BSc from another traditional Scottish university , was a 3 year degree.

Now everybody does "honours"

Yes but in England ‘honours’ degrees are three years. It’s not as though a three year English degree is in any way regarded as less than a four year Scottidh degree. The fourth year was always so they could start teaching to a Scottish school leaver who only had a higher in the subject, as opposed to an English school leavebwhi had an a-level. In fact back in the day those with a-levels we’re often allowed to skip this first year of a Scottish uni course such as maths cause that first year would be spent getting everyone up to the same level. You are trying to equalise those who have spent 1/5th of a year studying higher maths then 1/3rd year studying AH maths with a-level students who if they are studying maths and further maths have spent 2 years studying 2/3rds maths.

It’s not automatically the case that a new administration will introduce tuition fees, but it is insanely expensive and is actively hampering the numbers of places for Scottish students at our local unis. If it was free tuition fees OR the Scottish child payment (also expensive) I know which one I’d rather was kept.

And Scottish Labour (or Scottish Tories or Lib Dem’s for that matter*) might not do any better but they might govern with intelligence. There is not one SNP MSP what seems to have anything between their ears. I have goldfish that seem less glakit than Shona Robison.

*not you Scottish greens, not you.

Indeed. NS either knew, or should have.

In the past technically if you’d done AH or SYS as it was known, you had the option to enter directly into second year.
Those were the days when SYS maths was so extensive there were 4 separate awards each studied separately, timetabled as a separate subject and each carrying a grade.
I did paper I -Algebra and paper II- geometry and calculus. Much of first year uni was a repeat of that.
This was the1980s when Scotland led the way in education.You can see how dumbed down it’s become as it’s all now one paper.
Many students here are opting to leave from 5th year, take a year out to work and then go to Uni because there’s so little emphasis put on AH and the timetable for them is fitted in around Highers and Nat 5s. Subjects are only offered if there’s enough demand and if there’s a teacher available. When my children were at their medium sized school the timetable for AH was left to the very end and it often resulted timetable clashes which is rubbish. Some of it has moved online now to try and pool resources.

When rUK students study in Scotland I understand that in many cases they only pay fees for 3 years (some divide that into 4 and some don't charge for the final year) to keep it equal with the rest of the country otherwise they would have difficulty attracting these students . I guess there would be something similar. At the end of the day the uni would be getting c£30k instead of c£12? Plus, some of the lower ranked universities are mainly going to have Scottish students at the moment so might not survive if they go elsewhere or not at all.

In the past technically if you’d done AH or SYS as it was known, you had the option to enter directly into second year.

In some courses you can still do that. DS is doing a science-related course and could have applied for direct entry into second year on the back of Adv H in Chemistry and Biology, whereas DD who is doing primary teaching didn't have that option.

St Andrews see second year entry as standard - mainly because they don't really want Scottish students.

From the universities’ perspective it is not just who pays the fees, it is the level of them - £9250 pa for rUK students vs £1820 pa for Scottish students. That is why St Andrews don’t want more Scottish students.

Let's see what the SNP promise them in return for their support - the coming madness will be a sight to behold.

If they stop funding Scottish fees, do you think they would phase it out? What would happen for students who had already started? It would seem monumentally unfair to e.g. leave someone two years into a degree unable to continue because they had to pay fees, but still lumbered with debt from the degree they were unable to finish.

Well exactly, it is common sense that you'd rather have students paying £9k a year than those paying £2k - or having the £2k paid for them. And you'd MUCH rather have international students paying £20k plus for an undergrad per year.

The SNP should be working with Labour and Conservatives to get their budget passed, not a tiny extremist party.

It fee parity was introduced with England, the poor state of Scottish Education would become much more apparent when more Scottish students try to apply for English Universities. Some won’t even look at students who do less than eight GCSEs so if you have a school still following the Scottish Government’s preferred model of six Nat 5s you would fall at the first hurdle (I know several to have done so despite straight As).

Absolutely agree - but it shows how poor their policies and spending decisions are that they have to depend on a lunatic fringe party to push the budget through. Maybe Trans Scot will put in a good word for them.

If they wanted to keep the 4 year degree, they could take the £9k or whatever charged for English uni and spread that over 4 years instead, so £9k x 3 years = £27k, divided by 4 is £6750 a year.

https://theferret.scot/why-are-scottish-universities-worried-about-money/#:~:text=The%20IFS%20calculated%20that%20each,enrolled%20than%20Scottish%20universities%20did.

A lot if misinformation on this thread.

Not interested in sources that use the phrase "identifiy as female" it renders their data innacurate.