Independent Scotland would ‘enshrine free university tuition in constitution’

Free university tuition would be enshrined in an independent Scotland’s constitution, SNP ministers have said amid warnings the policy is squeezing out homegrown students.

Humza Yousaf’s government published the latest in a series of independence papers, this time on education, despite it being a policy area that is already devolved to Holyrood.

SNP ministers have overseen Scotland tumbling down international school league tables for maths, reading and science over the past 17 years, with the latest assessments showing English pupils performing better.

But the report argued that independence would allow ministers to “further improve” the education system and proposed free university tuition be included in a written constitution.

It said that an independent Scotland in the EU would mean students from the Continent would “once again enjoy the same access to higher education as Scottish students”. EU students also received free tuition before Brexit.

The SNP’s free tuition policy is only affordable by capping the number of “free” places for Scottish youngsters. There is no such cap for children from the rest of the UK as they pay fees.

Official figures have disclosed there was a 56 per cent increase in Scottish applications between 2006 and 2021 but an 84 per cent rise in the number refused entry.

Extending this right to EU students would mean there would be even greater competition for the fixed quota of “free” places, risking more Scots missing out.

Unveiling the paper, Jenny Gilruth, the SNP Education Secretary, said: “As we have already set out, we would enshrine economic, social and cultural rights – including the right to education – in the interim constitution, effective from day one of independence.

“The Scottish Government would propose that our policy on free university tuition is enshrined in the permanent constitution of an independent Scotland, subject to the deliberations of the constitutional convention.”

Among the other uncosted policies in the paper were improving maternity and paternity leave durations and pay and giving 16- and 17-year-olds the vote in all Scottish elections.

But the 34-page document, written by civil servants, contained barely a page on “school years” and no proposals for major reform of the education system.

The latest global Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) gave Scottish secondary pupils record low results and showed they had fallen further behind their English counterparts in reading, maths and science.

Craig Hoy, the Scottish Tory chairman, said: “It is appalling that hard-pressed Scots are still footing the bill for SNP propaganda papers that lack any credibility and which nobody reads.”

He added: “The SNP should be fixing the mess they’ve made of Scotland’s education system now, rather than worrying about what it would be like in an independent Scotland.”

‘Classic SNP jam tomorrow’

Pam Duncan-Glancy, a Labour MSP, said: “This is classic SNP jam tomorrow. Right now education in Scotland is in crisis and further and higher education faces serious funding issues while free places are cut.

“While the SNP dream about what Scottish education could be, the fact is that on their watch teachers, staff, pupils and students are facing a nightmare of the SNP’s making.”

The paper was published after an economist who previously advised the Scottish Government delivered outspoken warnings about a separate Scotland’s economy.

‘Mini Argentina’

Prof Mark Blyth, the William R Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics at Brown University in the United States, told a nationalist economics “festival” in Dundee at the weekend: “You can’t really say that Brexit is the worst thing ever, and then commit the biggest Brexit of all time. Which is literally what this is.”

He said as a “small, open economy”, an independent Scotland would need to “balance your imports and exports over the long term or everyone thinks your currency’s s---”.

Prof Blyth also warned Scotland could become a “mini Argentina” adding: “Just because you can print bits of money doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have things to back it up.”