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Friday 10 February 2012

Is Edinburgh University Scotland's latest disgrace?

Sunday, 21st March 2010

Imagine if Durham University were to decide that for courses heavily over-subscribed with qualified applicants it would reserve a small percentage of places for would-be students hailing from within 50 miles* of the university. Would anyone raise an eyebrow? I doubt it.

Yet when Edinburgh University adopts precisely this approach - for some of the humanities and, I suspect, medicine - suddenly there are hysterical cries of "racism" and "xenophobia". Tom Harris MP** [see update] says this is "shameful" and goes so far as to label the university "an embarrassment to Scotland".

What piffle. It's not the university that is obsessing about politics or the border here, it's the likes of Harris who, I suspect, worries that the university is demonstrating some kind of nationalist prejudice. That seems to be what Rachael Jolley at Next Left thinks too, labelling this policy "Little Scotlandism". This seems absurd, not least because more than 40% of UK-based undergraduates at Edinburgh are from south of the border. Some prejudice! Some xenophobia!

Harris also complains that English students are "already discriminated against" since it's more expensive for them to attend a Scottish university than it is for native Scots. Well, I'm in favour of top-up fees too but this is small beer. It's no more unreasonable than the fact it's more expensive to attend the University of Michigan if you're from Virginia than if you are from Michigan. Pretty much every public university in America "discriminates" in this fashion.

In any case, all (good) universities discriminate in their admissions policies. All you're arguing about are the grounds for that discrimination. Like any other leading university Edinburgh could fill most of its courses twice over. It's very easy to say "well just pick the best applicants" but determining who is the best applicant is hard enough when you're simply measuring exam results and even harder if you want to bring academic potential into the equation. So it's a lottery or a matter of guess-work or something else.

In any case, if it's a question of picking the best applicants then nationality of applicant shouldn't matter at all. But I suspect plenty of people would be unhappy if, say, every place on a given course was taken up by Chinese students and would be unhappy even if they were, to a student, the "best" applicants. So most people are, I hazard, happy with a degree of geographically-based discrimination; they simply differ on where to draw the line.

For some courses at Edinburgh a lottery, given the numbers of applicants, could easily result in no local students being admitted for a given subject, even though they'd meet admissions standards. Preventing that from happening does not seem so very shameful and, again, given that nearly half the undergraduate population is English it cannot be said that this policy, which has existed for a number of years now, has seriously inconvenienced, say, Etonians or Harrovians wishing to study at Edinburgh. (I'd also suggest that the University can probably be more confident that a local applicant will accept their offer than might be the case with some applicants from further afield for whom Edinburgh might be more likely to be their second choice.)

As I say, I doubt there'd be any outcry if Durham or Manchester or Bristol had comparable policies. But because this is a Scottish university suddenly it's controversial and a political matter. If there are double standards at work here they're being applied by Edinburgh's critics just as surely as they may or may not be by the university itself.

*This is what Edinburgh does. In the first instance it favours applicants from the Lothians, Fife, the Borders and Clackmannan. Then applicants from within the rest of Scotland and the north of England receive a slight preference. This is hardly the same as denying applicants from southern England the opportunity to study at Edinburgh.

PS: Would I be outraged if Oxford afforded a measure of priority for applicants from Oxfordshire? No I would not. Anyway, neither Oxford nor Cambridge permit their admissions to be dictated purely by measurable academic achievement and this too is, I think, reasonable enough. (For that matter, you won't have to search too hard to discover Scottish applicants to Oxbridge who have been asked at interview, "What is a Higher?" - a question that suggests not all admissions staff have always been au fait with the different education systems in these islands.)

**UPDATE: Tom Harris has changed his mind and thinks his original post was somewhat intemperate and mistaken. Good for him to do so publicly. Hats to be doffed etc etc.

Also: To respond to SarahAB in the comments - Edinburgh has had this policy in place for half a dozen years and there has been no decline in the number of English-based students studying in the capital. Really there is no nefarious plot to rid the university of English students.

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Sarah AB

March 21st, 2010 11:07am Report this comment

Re your first para - it certainly used to be the case that non-Scottish uk students had to pay fees whereas other Europeans didn't.

You note that 40% of UK based students currently studying in Edinburgh come from south of the border as though that proved there wasn't some potential for seeing this move as discriminatory. I don't see the logic - maybe the university wants the proportion to be smaller?

I think there's a big difference between this move and a similar move by, say Bristol, where the boundary would taken in a random selection of counties including bits of Wales. There is clearly something far more charged about Edinburgh bringing in this policy - 50 miles seems - a nicely calculated distance. And people in Bristol don't go around wearing T shirts saying 'anyone but Exeter' or 'anyone but Dorchester' as far as I know ...

Beefeater

March 21st, 2010 4:52pm Report this comment

"But I suspect plenty of people would be unhappy if, say, every place on a given course was taken up by Chinese students and would be unhappy even if they were, to a student, the "best" applicants."

Who are these people? Does their unhappiness bear moral scrutiny? Does it weigh against the injustice of being denied an earned place in the interests of nationalism, or what is now called geographically-based discrimination?
And if Chinese decided to move en masse to within 50 miles of Edinburgh, and change their names to Macwhatsit, what will Edinburgh do next to get real Scottish folk in? How does one know real Scottish folk from fake ones? Are they, perchance, the unhappy people you refer to?

Peter From Maidstone

March 21st, 2010 5:44pm Report this comment

Edinburgh is a British University therefore it is entirely bogus to suggest that the two choices which are available when considering admissions are either to be biased in favour of Scottish applicants to to allow the university to be filled with Chinese applicants.

The fact is that Edinburgh is a leading British University, funded by the British taxpayer. Therefore it seems rather odd that only 40% of students are English, since the proportion of Scottish to English students in the British student population must surely be something like 10% - 90%. Therefore there is already a marked bias against English applicants. It would seem that the university wishes to entrench this bias even more.

Perhaps you are not concerned, but perhaps a great many English taxpayers who are funding Edinburgh University will be concerned.

ndm

March 21st, 2010 6:35pm Report this comment

Peter from Maidstone writes:

-- The fact is that Edinburgh is a leading British University, funded by the British taxpayer. Therefore it seems rather odd that only 40% of students are English, since the proportion of Scottish to English students in the British student population must surely be something like 10% - 90%. Therefore there is already a marked bias against English applicants.

It certainly used to be the case that it was extremely difficult, because of different secondary education systems, for Scottish students to go to an English university. Consequently, every English student going to a Scottish university made it less likely that a Scottish student could go to university at all. (And in this I refer to a time before the emancipation of the Polytechnics.) When I was a student in Scotland something like 20% of the students were English. When I was a student in England I knew of only three other Scottish students - less than 0.1% of the student body. Indeed, I shared a house with more African students than that.

One problem Edinburgh supposedly ran into as the University became even more popular with English students was a marked increase in the population of wealthy English students viewing it as an alternative to Oxbridge with very respectable New Town flats for daddy to buy one and decent air transport to London and various Alpine skiing resorts. Indeed, it is perhaps only apocryphal, but there were two skiing clubs at Edinburgh - one for the locals who couldn't make San Moritz every friday night and one for those wealthy enough to avoid Glen Shee.

I think universities need diversity in a student body which is one reason my house is littered in prospectuses from various institutions in Scotland and these United States. But being a great believer in the breadth of education afforded by the Scottish education system as opposed to the narrow early specialization of the English education system I do believe that the Scottish Universities have an obligation to extend that tradition into the tertiary sector and give some priority to those who grew up in it.

Sarah AB

March 21st, 2010 8:46pm Report this comment

But ndm - surely these problems with Scottish students studying in England are a thing of the past? My experience with admissions is that they can translate qualifications from *anywhere* into their British (or indeed English) equivalents. I assume Scottish students tend to stay in Scotland because their university culture is more European (ie stay at home) and also because there are so many good universities to choose from there. I don't follow Peter's point about there being a problem with only 40% of UK students in Edinburgh being English - but I also don't follow why, just because one happens to like the less specialised Scottish school system, one should try to discourage English students from attending Scottish universities. Anyway, lots of English schools are now doing the IB.

emkent

March 22nd, 2010 12:04am Report this comment

Why would a Scottish student want to study outside Scotland and pay the ridiculous fees, when they can stay in Scotland and study for free? If Scottish Universities didn't weigh their admissions towards Scottish students then the large proportion of Scottish students just wouldn't go to university!

Personally I think this is ridiculous. I'm a first year Undergraduate at Edinburgh and I went to school in Bristol!

ndm

March 22nd, 2010 4:04am Report this comment

Sarah AB -

As I pointed out I was discussing the case as it used to be and am not sure of the current situation. The problem was that the Scottish students had a much broader education leaving their knowledge too general to meet the more specialized requirements of an English university.

Sarah AB

March 22nd, 2010 7:21am Report this comment

Thanks ndm - that makes the point clearer - although I would have though 6th year study would have sorted things out (Advanced Highers).

Dirty Euro

March 22nd, 2010 8:45pm Report this comment

Yawn Yawn, more English nationalist claiming Scotland is subsidized no evidence for it.
What about the fact almost all civil service jobs are in London. Do you complain about subsidies to London and the south east why not?

Nick

May 11th, 2011 5:32pm Report this comment

The issue with edinburgh is that it is a UK university subsidised by the UK government which ultimately is paid for by all UK residents. So why should only the scots get the benefit of not only completely free tutition but also a better chance of getting in to this university. Especially as this is a top university and by reducing the pool of applicants it looks at reduces the standards of the university.
I fail to believe that if Oxford and Cambridge began to discriminate geographically then their would be no complaints. The north of England would be denied the best education the UK can provide. I personally believe this would cause an uproar.
And for the matter of it being free for scots to attend scottish universities i also think this is extremely unfair. what if Oxford and Cambrdge charged more and more the further away you lived? For example if you lived in Manchester it could cost £20,000 a year, almost noone would be able to afford this even if you deserved a place you would not be able to go.
I believe university admissions with in the UK from UK applicants should be completely fair, up to the point that every applicant's personal details are kept secret and every application form is just a number.

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