Educational News: University Funding in Scotland

Scotland seems to have been less hard hit by the spending cuts. There are a number of reasons for this.

Revenue Cuts

The majority of education spending is held by local authorities who have to cut 2.6% of their budget. The central education budget will reduce by 6.8% and the capital budget falls by 28.9 per cent. A total reduction of £233.8 million produces a budget of £2583.6 million for 2011/12.

The savings are to be achieved by cutting bureaucracy and inefficiency.

Summary of the statement

• Total number of college/university student places will be protected
• Educational grants (Educational Maintenance Allowances) for school pupils has been saved
• Maintain pupil teacher ratios in P1 to P3
• Create a new Early Years and Early Intervention Fund (start-up fund £5m)
• Guarantee existing levels of living costs support for students in college and university
• Protect the main research excellence grant for universities
• Provision of £20m for building new schools across Scotland.
• Teaching jobs to be protected – probationary teachers leaving education this year will have same number of job opportunities available to them and more jobs will be created.