McMILLAN WELCOMES GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT TO END GRADUATE ENDOWMENT

West of Scotland MSP Stuart McMillan has welcomed the proposal by Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop to scrap the Graduate Endowment scheme.

Stuart has said that “The graduate endowment scheme was always a fudge, introduced by the Lib-Lab coalition in 2001 to replace the highly unpopular tuition fees. It was introduced as part of a system of student support based on the principles of the Cubie committee: student support should promote social inclusion, barriers to widening access and participation should be removed. It is a policy that has failed to deliver those aims.

"Our government wants to see Scottish Education return to the principle that it is an individual's ability to learn, not their ability to pay, that dictates their educational achievement. Not only is the graduate endowment unreasonable, at a time when we need to invest in our most important resource, our people, it is also singularly inefficient as a method of raising money.

I regard this is a positive step forward for Scotland and the removal of a barrier to young people achieving their full potential. It also demonstrates this government's commitment to a thriving higher education sector”.