Rectors Charles Kennedy MP, from Glasgow University, former Lib Dem leader, Mark Ballard from Edinburgh University, former Green MSP, Simon Pepper from St Andrews and Craig Murray from Dundee University chaired the discussion at Edinburgh University.

The event was designed to voice the views of the student representatives on the Taskforce, set up in the wake of a disappointing budget settlement for the sector last year.   The Taskforce, made up of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Funding Council and Universities Scotland, attracted criticism from student and lecturers’ bodies for excluding them from the process.  Ballard criticised the Taskforce for failing to allow “students, the prime stakeholders of universities, to have their voices adequately listened to.”  

Student finance is one issue rectors believed would have been placed higher on the agenda had students been involved.  With the average student leaving university £13,500 in debt, Pepper said that the issue of student debt is crucial to encouraging greater participation and widening access. 

Murray said the model of student funding currently in place has only been tested in times of economic growth and questioned how it will stand up the economic downturn.  He warned that growing debt is a deterrent to students from lower socio-economic groups and could lead to a class divide in Higher Education in Scotland.  “The lack of reference to student support in the document is a fundamental flaw” he argued.

Funding needed for Scottish universities to remain competitive was a key issue highlighted by the rectors.  The Taskforce addressed how existing funds are divided up but it did not deal with the more pressing issue of increasing funding, Ballard said.  While Scotland has ‘wisely chosen’ not to go down the route of English and Welsh universities which benefit from tuition fees, Scottish institutions must receive higher public funding to compete with their counterparts south of the border he argued.   

Kennedy said that rectors will be lobbying hard at Holyrood for a fair settlement for the Higher Education sector ahead of the next budget.  He urged that with the cap likely to come off tuition fees in England in 2010, Scotland’s funding position cannot be viewed in isolation.  He said he would use his ‘day job’ as an MP at Westminster to put down parliamentary questions and hold discussions with ministers to ensure that developments cannot happen in isolation to what is happening north of the border. 

With the deadline for comments on the Taskforce interim report approaching next week, rectors said the student bodies National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland and the Coalition for Higher Education Students in Scotland (CHESS) would be making their views known in a joint submission.