Rocks Will Melt With the Sun: Higher Education, National Identity and
the Independence Debate in Scotland
by
John Graeme Stewart
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Leaderships, Higher and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education
University of Toronto
© by John Graeme Stewart 2021
Abstract
Rocks Will Melt With The Sun: Higher Education, National Identity and the Independence Debate in Scotland Doctor of Philosophy, 2021 John Graeme Stewart Graduate Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Higher education has become connected to the political debate around independence in Scotland, playing a significant role in both regular elections for the
Scottish Parliament and in the debate around the 2014 Independence Referendum. Using the nationalism-social policy nexus as a framework for analysis, this thesis explores how contemporary higher education policy has been deliberately connected to a historical conception of a distinct tradition of higher education in Scotland to position nationalist political actors as the protectors of Scotland’s political values and identity, and independence as the only way to ensure the continuity of these values in the face of
England’s differing approach to higher education and social service provision. Using document review, a content analysis, key informant interviews and several international comparative case studies, this dissertation validates the existence of a belief in a distinct
Scottish tradition, and how appeals to that tradition can be motivating in certain political contexts, such as normal parliamentary elections. It also find that the nationalism-social policy nexus helps explain both the sharp policy divergence, particularly on tuition fees, between Scotland and the United Kingdom, and why higher education came to play a role in the 2014 Independence debate. Interestingly, higher education was deployed by both the “Yes” and “No” campaigns to support their respective arguments. This fact enriches our understanding of the nexus, in that it is effective in explaining why a nationalist sub- state government may make certain policy choices, but is unable to predict whether these choices become politically motivating for voters.
ii The dissertation furthers our understanding of the relationship between higher education and the state, notably how political forces such as sub-state nationalism drive policymaking in postsecondary education systems. State power is often theorized as unitary, where one central political authority exerts influence on higher education institutions to further specific nation-building or ideological goals. The case of Scotland suggests that higher education policy is not only driven by what is useful to the state, but also by those who seek to re-negotiate or dismantle it.
iii
For Emmett & Leif
iv
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks will melt wi’ the sun; I will love thee still my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run.
-Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose
v Acknowledgements
This dissertation was researched and written while also working full-time and starting a family, which means that a lot of people were variously heroically patient, accommodating and supportive of me along the way. I would first like to thank all of the individuals who took time out of their schedules to participate in the key informant interviews. Not only did you provide valuable insight that made this project possible, but you were also welcoming and kind to the strange Canadian tromping all over your campuses and places of work. I greatly appreciated the offers of lunch and the rides back to assorted train stations. I want to offer a special word of thanks to Professor Jim Gallacher, a great advocate of expanding access to higher education, who sadly passed away before this project was completed. Graham Angus and Brad Lepp helped me pilot the coding frame for the content analysis, and graciously agreed to act as my second and third coders. The final product is much richer thanks to them. The late, great Henry Mandelbaum, former Executive Director of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, encouraged me to begin this PhD program in the first place. His successor, Mark Rosenfeld, was also incredibly supportive as I worked to complete my coursework, thesis proposal and research. The Honourable Deb Matthews not only shared her excellent planning spreadsheet, “The Road to Dr. Deb,” but also showed me that it is possible to complete a dissertation while holding down a very challenging job. If a Member of Provincial Parliament and cabinet minister could complete a doctorate, it seemed reasonable that I could, too. I was blessed with a very supportive – and extremely understanding – supervisory committee. The thoughtful comments of Professors Leesa Wheelahan and Ruth Hayhoe greatly improved this project at all stages of its completion. None of this could have happened without the guidance and support of Glen Jones, professor of higher education and Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The seed of this project began in his Systems of Higher Education course, and he has been a part of it at every step. I hope everyone has the benefit of a supervisor with his knowledge, patience and uncanny ability to gently nudge at the right moment to ensure the work gets done. Mavis Rodgers, ballroom dancer, theatre impresario and my grandmother, is not around to see this finished. But she was a tireless and loving booster for all of my various schemes and studies, and I know she would see a little bit of herself in these pages. My parents and sister had a huge role to play in this project. It would be hard to find a
vi more encouraging family unit. My mom and dad gifted me a lifelong love of learning, and helped me through the various ups and downs of putting this thing together. My son, Emmett, is too young to understand what a thesis is, but took it with good humor when I periodically disappeared into the basement to write. Leif arrived after I completed the draft, but his impending arrival helped provide some much needed focus to the final stages of this dissertation. Someday, I hope I can explain to both of them how the fact of their existence inspired me to keep going when it seemed a lot easier to just pitch it all in the bin. And to Laura, my partner in all of this, I would have to write another 100,000 words to explain how much your love and support means to me. You have the patience of a saint, and I continually amazed by your ability to shoulder the load and keep us all healthy and happy. Thank you.
vii Table of Contents
Chapter Page
1. Introduction: An Extraordinary Pledge…….…………………………………………..1 2. The Nationalism-Social Policy Nexus……………………………………………...... 8 3. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………21 4. A (Very) Brief History of the Scottish Nation……………………….…………….....31 5. A Distinct Scottish Tradition of Higher Education?……….……………………..…..45 6. Convergence and Divergence - Scotland’s Universities from 1889 to 2014…………65 7. Validating the Scottish Tradition, Past and Present……..………………..…………..96 8. Higher Education and the Referendum Campaign………………..……………..….138 9. Higher Education and Nationalism in Other Sub-State Nations………………..……175 10. After No: Looking to the Future of Higher Education in Scotland………………….204 11. Conclusion: Higher Education and Nationalism…………..……………………...…218
viii List of Figures
Figure Page
1. Attachment to Scottish and British Identity, 2012-2018……………………110 2. Individuals featured in articles by type……………………………………..140 3. Number of higher education articles appearing per month, September 2013-September 2014…………….…………………………….143 4. Number of articles per month by intensity of coverage…………………….144 5. Location of Quebec within Canada…………………………………………177 6. Location of Catalonia within Spain…………………………………………190 7. Location of Flanders within Belgium……………………………………….200
ix List of Appendices
Appendix Page
A. Content Analysis Coding Frame……………………………………………241 B. Interview Protocol……….…………………………………………...……..245 C. Interview participants…………….………………………………………....247 D. Thematic Nodes and Sub-Nodes used in Qualitative Data Analysis……….248
x 1. Introduction: An Extraordinary Pledge
On March 12, 2011, Alex Salmond took the stage to address the membership of the Scottish National Party at their annual conference in Glasgow. Salmond, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), knew this was an important moment. In two months, Scotland would go to the polls to elect a new government, the fourth such election since the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the devolution of political authority in 1999. Like most party conference speeches, it was an opportunity to both rally the party faithful and lay out the SNP’s policy. Midway through the speech, Salmond said something extraordinary. Speaking of tuition fees for Scottish university students, he made about the clearest statement on his party’s policy that it was possible to make:
We would only fail if we were to betray our traditions and mortgage the future. So, when it comes to the question of university fees or graduate taxes, I know where I stand. The rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scottish students - upfront or backdoor.
Tuition fees were already an important issue to Salmond’s party, and to Scotland generally. The re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 coincided with the re- introduction of tuition fees across the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Tony Blair, ending nearly four decades of effectively free access to universities that had been a key plank of the post-war British welfare state. The new fees were controversial across the UK, but especially so in Scotland. And since Scotland, through the devolution of powers that created the new Scottish Parliament, now had control over higher education policy, tuition fees became a defining issue for the new legislature. In 2007, at the helm of a minority government, Salmond’s party had eliminated the compromise “graduate endowment,” where students paid a fixed contribution post-graduation. This action had rendered university truly free for Scottish students. Four year later, months before the SNP would win a surprising majority government, Salmond was doubling down. His statement was unusual for several reasons. In modern electoral politics, it is relatively rare for a party leader to make such a definitive - and from a policy perspective, limiting - declaration. Salmond gave himself no wiggle room is his approach to student tuition fees, not only by ruling out any policy change (barring the impossibility of liquifying stones in the noonday sun), but by dramatically limiting the ways in which this pledge could be kept. His
1 statement not only rejected the charging of fees at the point of access to a university, but also policies like a graduate tax or an income-contingent loan scheme which allow for student contributions towards the cost of delivering higher education while making university effectively free up front. Salmond had ruled out any form of student contribution to their education, making the Scottish Government the sole funder of Scotland’s students. Salmond’s statement was also out of line with trends in tuition fee policy in most jurisdictions, especially in the English-speaking world. Tuition fees have been generally rising for the past thirty years, as governments expanded access to higher education while constraining costs by shifting a portion of the financial burden onto students. In the United Kingdom, the Westminster Parliament had in 2010 allowed fees to increase to £9,000, a three-fold increase over the previous maximum. Salmond’s statement was a reaction to this change in policy, which starkly highlighted his own government’s divergent position on student fees. Just three years out from the 2008 financial crisis, the UK was in the midst of a particularly severe round of austerity in funding for public services. Cuts were being made across the public sector, and the hike in UK tuition fees was part of this broader trend. The Scottish Government’s commitment to free tuition fees is doubly remarkable in this context - not only were they rejecting the policy direction of the central state, but they were also taking on a much higher share of the cost of funding Scotland’s universities in the face of fiscal restraint. Finally, Salmond’s statement is remarkable not only for what he said, but how he chose to say it. The phrase, “rocks will melt in the sun” is a direct reference to the poem “Red, Red Rose” by Robbie Burns. His invocation of Burns, Scotland’s national poet and literary hero, connected the tuition fee policy to centuries-old notions of Scottish identity and the Scottish nation. The use of the word “tradition” in Salmond’s speech is not accidental. A strong sense of a historical Scottish tradition of higher education, based on notions of equity, fairness and merit, persists in Scotland. Salmond was linking his government’s policy to this tradition, implying that the SNP was the true inheritor and protector of Scotland’s distinct values. All of this leaves us with a compelling question: why? Why had Salmond made such a definitive statement, so out of line with the direction of policy in the UK? Why had he chosen to connect it with the myths and traditions of the Scottish nation? The SNP is, of course, a nationalist political party with an avowed independence project. It is not unusual for any sub- state government focused on autonomy to wrap themselves in the supposedly unique values of their region. But why tuition fees, a policy that only affects a minority of individuals in any given year?
2 This dissertation argues that higher education policy in Scotland, and specifically policy around tuition fees, has become deeply connected to the debate around Scottish independence. The connection was forged deliberately, by a political party looking for policy vehicles to demonstrate their distinctiveness from the central UK state and their bona fides as the true protectors of Scotland. In higher education, the Scottish National Party is fortunate to have a policy area with a long history and a prominent place in the national consciousness of the Scottish people. Beginning in the 15th century, the four ancient universities – St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh – have acted as pillars of Scottish identity, sources of pride and points of distinction between Scotland and England. Through the 19th century, these institutions also came to embody certain values thought to be distinctly Scottish, notably their relative openness to students from a wide variety of social backgrounds, their supposed more democratic character, and their closer connection to the life of the wider community. Prior to the expansion of British higher education in the mid 20th century, Scotland did enjoy a higher university participation rate than England (Shattock, 2007) and there were clear differences between Oxford and Cambridge and the Scottish ancients in terms of their connection with their communities. These differences have tended to decrease over time. But as is often the case, the idea of a distinct tradition has become more powerful than the historical reality. Scotland’s higher education sector expanded through the 20th century, and now includes 15 universities and several other specialist higher education institutions. A great deal of university-level instruction also occurs in Scotland’s system of further education colleges, a unique characteristic within the United Kingdom. The modern Scottish system is now somewhat stratified, with the ancients considered elite institutions, the mid-20th century universities and post-92 institutions occupying a shifting middle tier, and the FE colleges filling a less prestigious, but a very important role in terms of facilitating access to higher education. As this system grew, it was also progressively integrated within the UK and international higher educational spaces. Despite this evolution, the historic idea of a fairer, more democratic and more open higher education system has persisted. It is this idea where the link between tuition fee policy and nationalism has been forged. This connection had been effectively deployed in several election campaigns in Scotland since the Scottish Parliament’s re-establishment, but faced a more rigorous test in September of 2014. Eighteen months after Salmond’s speech in Glasgow, he signed the Edinburgh Agreement with Prime Minister David Cameron, laying out the terms under which Scotland would hold a referendum on independence. Such a referendum is the ne plus ultra for any nationalist government. It was also a rare and powerful opportunity to observe the connection
3 between higher education policy and nationalist politics in action. In order to better understand these dynamics, this thesis answers the following research question: How was higher education and higher education policy used to mobilize support for - or against - Scotland's independence in the lead-up to the 2014 referendum? I hypothesize that higher education, while perhaps not a central issue, was nevertheless implicated in the political debate, used by both sides to advance their preferred outcome. To evaluate this hypothesis, it is first necessary to establish a theoretical framework for understanding how social policy - of which higher education is a subset - might be influenced by nationalism. In particular, it is important to understand how nationalism in sub-state regions - like provinces, federal states or other administrative units - drives policy divergence with the central state. Chapter two will explore the concept of the nationalism-social policy nexus, advanced by Daniel Béland and André Lecours (2005, 2008), which suggests that, rather than simply an accident of history or political expediency, sub-state regions with active independence movements will often use their powers over social policy in similar ways and towards similar ends. This concept is important for understanding political dynamics within Scotland and how policy is being used by the Scottish National Party to advance its political project. Chapter three lays out a methodology for evaluating the research question. The relationship between higher education policy and nationalism is explored through a combination of primary and secondary source analysis; a content analysis of media coverage of higher education issues during the independence campaign; a comparative look at other jurisdictions with active nationalist movements; and a series of key informant interviews with academics, administrators, advocates, activists, journalists, civil servants and politicians close to the higher education sector While the nationalism-social policy nexus lays out a framework for understanding the commonalities in how different sub-state nationalists may use social policy, local context remains important for understanding the particular manifestations of the nexus in Scotland’s politics. Chapter four will provide a brief history of the Scottish nation, with particular attention to how Scottish identity has become attached to institutions like the church, legal code and education system. Chapter five examines how a distinct historical tradition of higher education was created throughout Scotland’s history, but coalesced during the 19th century. To conclude this tour of Scottish history, chapter six will examine the pattern of policy convergence and divergence throughout the 20th century, as Scotland was first pulled into the UK’s welfare state and then acquired autonomy over social policy at the beginning of the 21st. Taken together, these chapters explore the unique combination of history and values that have
4 made higher education policy a useful tool for Scottish nationalists. Chapter seven tests the historical tradition against the modern understanding of individuals working in and around Scotland’s university sector and assesses the role played by higher education in Scotland’s politics generally. Chapter eight looks at the role of higher education in the 2014 referendum campaign on Scottish independence, using the data collected through the content analysis to contextualize the individual reflections of the interview participants. The dissertation then adds a comparative element in chapter nine to examine similar dynamics - or the lack of the same - in Quebec, Catalonia and Flanders to demonstrate what conditions must be present for higher education to be connected to nationalist debates. It concludes by examining political and policy developments since the 2014 referendum, including Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, this dissertation makes several contributions. It adds to the growing literature around social policy and nationalism. While the two constructs have been the subject of extensive analysis independent of one another, theorists are only recently beginning to explore the relationship between the two. This dissertation explores how a particular form of social policy – higher education – may be affected by sub-state nationalism and how this shapes the policy debate within the large state. It is my hope that this examination of a particular example of the nationalism-social policy nexus enriches our understanding of the nexus generally. From a comparativist perspective, my dissertation also contributes to a greater understanding of the policy dynamics currently shaping the higher education systems in Scotland, Quebec, Spain, and Belgium. Both the similarities and differences in the relationship between higher education and sub-state nationalism in these jurisdictions will be useful to consider as a means to refine the framework advanced by Béland and Lecours. This analysis contributes to the well-established literature around the relationship between higher education and the state. There are a variety of ways to conceptualize this relationship that have been theorized to date, and this dissertation employs several key approaches. Pioneering work in this field by Trow (1973) and Clark (1983) examines the distribution of power between the state and higher education institutions, providing important foundational insights for how these actors behave in relation to one another under different contexts and system characteristics. There is also significant scholarly work that focuses on the outputs of the higher education, and how these might be useful to the state. The first such approach is to view education, and higher education in particular, as a tool of nation building (Neave, 2001; Perkin, 2007). Neave (2001) observes that this relationship is often structured by prevailing ideas of what constitutes “useful knowledge” at a given period of time. In the
5 19th century, it was the production of knowledge and experts that would serve the nation- building needs of states in the process of political consolidation. In the contemporary context, useful knowledge may mean the creation of highly skilled workers who will attract and develop lucrative knowledge-based industries. This latter function also suggests the second way of theorizing the state/higher education relationship - higher education as a means to advance economic development, which is always a key focus for national and sub-national governments alike. In the post-industrial world, higher education helps states remain economically competitive and politically coherent in the global knowledge society, where universities function as “axial institutions” (Bell, 1973). University research becomes particularly important in this strand of analysis, as the discoveries and applied innovations developed within universities can be spun out into new profitable enterprises, or even entire new industries (or so it is argued). Higher education can also be theorized as belonging to the basket of inter-related social policies typically described as the welfare state (Esping-Anderson, 1990; Pechar & Andres, 2011). In this conceptualization, policies that facilitate broader demographic access to higher learning are a key part of the state’s effort to ensure either equality of opportunity or condition, depending on the ideological orientation of the welfare state in question. University attendance is seen as a driver of social mobility, and a variety of policy solutions have been put in place to expand access in many countries, such as free tuition fees or generous student financial aid. The welfare-state approach is perhaps most resonant with the question of tuition fees and higher education policy in Scotland, as the Scottish Government’s recent policy in this area has been explicitly framed in terms of fairness and social equity. Much of the research around higher education and the state looks at the functional products – knowledge, skilled workers, greater equality, etc. – of higher education, and how states utilize these products towards rational outcomes. Higher education policy can also be deployed for more non-instrumental ends. A variety of theorists, working from divergent perspectives, have outlined the role played by higher education in defining and transmitting national culture (Bloom, 1987; Tierney, 1993; Neave 2001). In this view, universities play an important role in distinguishing what is and is not culturally and politically significant, and inculcating the nation’s elite with these values, what Billig (1995) might describe as a means to “flag” the political and social contours of the nation. It should be noted that this ability has been framed as both a positive and negative characteristic, with Tierney (1993) in particular arguing that the conceptions of culture and identity traditionally forged in higher education institutions have been historically used to exclude certain groups and interests. Similar to the
6 transmission of culture, universities are also thought to have a civic role, in the sense that they prepare students to become engaged democratic citizens. This conception is particularly prevalent in liberal democracies (Fallis, 2007). Building on these various approaches, my dissertation suggests that, in addition to the products of higher education, the values embodied in universities and university policy are useful to the state and sub-state entities. These values can be used to mobilize public support for a variety of political projects, including sub-state nation building. In Scotland, universities are politically useful in terms of their historical prominence and emotional appeal, not just their ability to produce skilled civil servants or drive economic growth. Non-rational dynamics in higher education policymaking are under-theorized, and this limits our ability to understand the full range of policy motivations at work in modern higher education systems. In other words, when a political leader stands up and declares that rocks will melt in the sun before tuition fees are charged, it tells us something important about how higher education policy is being used for political ends that go far beyond stated goals.
7 2. The Nationalism-Social Policy Nexus
In order to understand why higher education policy is a useful political tool for those campaigning for the independence of Scotland, it is first important to understand the broader connection between nationalism and social policy. As Béland and Lecours (2008) note, little has been written on the connection between nationalism and social policy, despite huge scholarly interest in the two as independent concepts. There is now an emerging literature that explores how nationalism – and in particular, sub-state nationalism – drives policy divergence in several modern states, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Belgium. From this literature, it is possible to construct a theoretical framework for considering the effects of independence movements on higher education policy. Such a framework depends on two related areas of scholarship: efforts to expand and refine the concepts of nation and nationalism, and work to theorize the nationalism-social policy nexus (Béland & Lecours, 2005, p. 2008).
Understanding Nations and Nationalism
Nation and nationalism are challenging concepts in contemporary political theory. As Béland and Lecours (2008) note, they are “among the most contested concepts in the social sciences” (p. 14). The ongoing debate about what constitutes modern nations and nation states - and what we mean when we describe someone as a “nationalist” - has both refined and expanded our understanding of these concepts. There are two recent insights that are particularly useful for analysis: that nationalism is an ideology that sustains the world of nation states, and that modern nation states are not totalizing entities, but can contain numerous and competing nations. Traditionally, the term nationalism was most often used to describe groups striving – often through violent means – to create a new nation. The term “nationalist” is also applied to right-wing extremists, seeking to construct a concept of nation around an exclusionary political, cultural, or ethnic identity. The term “white nationalist” is a powerful contemporary example of this usage, one that has surged to prominence in the current polarized partisan politics of the United States. To the extent that these nationalisms are based in “blood, soil, violence, xenophobia, and sectarianism,” they are viewed by many scholars as illegitimate and harmful phenomena (Law & Mooney, 2012, p. 167). As Billig (1995) notes, nationalism is often thought of as being “the property of others” (p. 37) something that is “dangerously
8 irrational, surplus, and alien” (p. 55). However, recent scholarship has challenged the negative view of nationalism, suggesting that it is not an aberration, but rather a near-universal mechanism that sustains the world of nation-states (Billig, 1995). In his influential book Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson (1983) suggests that nations are an imagined political community with clear boundaries and sovereignty within those boundaries. In order for an individual to believe that they belong to a nation, they must be able to imagine a “deep, horizontal comradeship” with fellow members of the community, the vast majority of whom they will never meet (1983, p. 7). Building on this theme, Billig (1995) develops the concept of “banal nationalism,” where nationalism is not a force that threatens nation states through violence or dissolution, but rather is the set of beliefs that normalizes and sustains the world of nations. For Billig (1995), nationalism is “the endemic condition” of established states (p. 6) where national identity is “embedded in the routines of life, which constantly remind, or ‘flag’, nationhood” (p. 38). In effect, nationalism “is the ideology by which the world of nations has come to seem the natural world – as if there could not possibly be a world without nations” (p. 37). The work of Benedict Anderson and Billig constructs nationalism as the means by which nations and national identity are reproduced and transmitted. Nationalism is “banal” in the sense that it operates at the level of daily life, and is embodied in the myriad symbols and institutions that fill public space. Citizens are able to imagine the existence of, and their membership in, a nation because it is continuously flagged in the world around them. This insight helps illuminate the connection between social policy and nationalism. The key areas of social policy – health, income, housing, and education – allow governments to reach citizens daily and in deeply personal ways. They are therefore powerful sites for nation and national identity to be flagged. With major supranational integration projects, such as the European Union, and the global mobility of capital under international free trade regimes, it has been suggested that nation states and nationalism are becoming less important as political identifiers. However, Béland and Lecours (2008) point out that “state nationalism” has “considerable staying power,” which often resurfaces in the face of major integrationist projects like the EU (p.14). In the UK, the successful campaign to leave the European Union, and the tortuous process to effect “Brexit,” is a powerful example of the continued relevance of traditional conceptions of the state. Just as the concept of nationalism has been usefully expanded by recent scholarship, the concept of “nation” has also been subject to critical scrutiny. As Keating (2009) writes:
9 Modern social science is thirled to a model of the nation state, from which it has trouble escaping. This represents the state as a stable set of boundaries within which are contained a spatially bounded economy, a society united by identity and culture, a set of governing and representative institutions, and, in more recent times, a system of social protection (p. 10).
In other words, scholarship on the nation state is attached to the model that supposedly emerged in the wake of the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. While often thought to have established the principle of national sovereignty, the Peace in fact entrenched the principle of cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, his religion), or the idea that the religion of the ruler should determine the religion of his or her subjects (Keating, 2009, p. 11). This notion of religious sovereignty, while an important milestone in the development of modern states, is only tenuously connection to the reality of nations today. Coupled with the fact that nations existed both before Westphalia and within the political entities the Peace helped create, this observation has led many scholars to conclude that the dominant model of the state is inadequate (Keating, 2009; Béland & Lecours, 2008; McEwan, 2005; Guibernau, 2006). The Westphalian ideal does not account “for the sociological fact that some states contain more than one group whose members see themselves as a nation” (Keating, 2009, p. 11). Jeffery (2014) criticizes the tendency of postwar social science to view the nation state as the default level of analysis, what he and others refer to as “methodological nationalism.” The insistence on using the nation state as the primary unit of analysis ignores the rising salience of regions as important sites for citizens to pursue their political, social and economic goals, and is therefore an important unit of study for modern social scientists:
Compared with 30 years ago, there are now many more regional decision-making authorities in advanced democracies exercising a widening range of policy responsibilities, producing widening inter-regional policy variations, and contested by a growing number of region-only (that is, non-state-wide) political parties (Jeffery, 2014, p. 2).
Similarly, Toubeau and Wagner (2015) observe that, “the migration of authority to the regional level has been an unmistakable trend across developed countries that has led to important processes of constitutional reform” (p. 97). Regions do not necessarily include populations that see themselves as a nation distinct from the larger state, but the existence of a defined region is an important condition for the persistence of these intra-state national identities.
10 Béland and Lecours (2008) thus suggest that a more complete definition of a “nation” contains features that are both objective – for example, a common language, culture, ancestry, economic system, or institutional framework – and subjective, where the nation is seen as the result of “a collective act of will” (p.16). This notion echoes Benedict Anderson’s (1983) conception of “imagined communities.” A nation exists, in part, because its members share an internal commitment to its existence. Based on these objective and subjective elements, Béland and Lecours (2008) advance the following definition of nation:
a territorially anchored group whose members commonly share a special sense of solidarity and identity associated with common cultural markers and/or history, and who claim, in the name of this solidarity, a distinct political status (p. 16).
This definition is at once both broad and nuanced, and is better able to account for the increasing importance of regions in the lives of citizens of modern democracies, and the existence of national identities anchored to those regions. Often referred to as “stateless nations” or “sub-state nations,” these groups can be found in many developed countries. A group of modern states – such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Belgium, among others – are better viewed as multinational states, composed of multiple, and often competing, nations. Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia and Flanders are examples of sub-state nations that occupy defined territories, and whose members share strong bonds of history, culture, and identity. Crucially, these shared bonds manifest in clear calls for unique political status, ranging from increased regional control to outright independence. Not surprisingly, these sub-state nations contain active nation-building projects, often running contrary to those undertaken by the overarching state (Law & Mooney, 2012; Keating 2009; Béland & Lecours, 2005, 2008; Guibernau, 2006). The literature around sub-state nations and nationalisms is related to scholarship on federalism, a form of government where different powers are shared between a central political authority and at least one other sub-state unit. The division of these powers can be established in a formal written constitution (as in the United States of America and Canada) or can evolve over time through precedent and legislation (as is arguably, and increasingly, the case in Belgium). Marginson and Carnoy (2018) suggest that federal systems may exist as a matter of political expediency, where power is divided to facilitate more efficient administration over a large territory, or may emerge from the bottom up in response to “potent regional traditions” (p. 1). Keating (2009) identifies federalism as a response to the
11 existence of one or more sub-state nations within a larger multinational state. Federalism is an interesting space in the study of higher education policy, as universities and non-university forms of tertiary education tend to attract the interest of the central government and its provinces or states (Marginson & Carnoy, 2018, p. 2). In Canada, for example, education is defined as a provincial responsibility, but that federal government if active in funding university research and infrastructure (Fisher et al, 2009) . Conceptions of federalism play a comparatively smaller role in the discussion of higher education in the United Kingdom, as political actors there tend not to view the UK as a federal state. Keating (2009) describes the UK as neither a unitary or federal state, but a true union, lacking the consistent and formalized political structure implied by federalism. The devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament, for example, are not specified in a constitution but instead derive from an act of the Westminster Parliament. Some observers (for example Boggs, 2016) have suggested that something approximating federalism is emerging within UK higher education, but it is in a nascent state and not fully theorized. For that reason, federalism will not be a central theoretical approach used by this paper, but it is an important area of research to consider when approaching the issue of sub-state nationalism and policy divergence. That these sub-state national identities and alternative nation-building movements persist centuries after being subsumed into larger central states suggests that the forces of banal nationalism operate within stateless nations. Just as symbols, institutions, and social practices reproduce nation and national identity in traditional nation states, they can also serve to reinforce a sub-state identity. This is particularly true where particular symbols, institutions, and practices are viewed as unique to the sub-national group. Keating (2009) suggests that the traditional model of the nation state has come to include “a system of social protection” (p. 10). Such systems – composed of education, health, and income security provisions – are powerful institutional cues for the existence of a “nation.” In many modern federal states, regional governments possess, or have acquired, the ability to set their own policies in these important areas. Billig would describe these cues as a way of “flagging” the existence of the sub-state political space, and have thus become important areas for sub-state national movements to construct a unique identity. This is the basis of the nationalism-social policy nexus.
The Nationalism-Social Policy Nexus
Having briefly defined both nationalism and nation, it is perhaps wise to spend a few
12 moments defining what precisely is meant by social policy. As Pechar and Andres (2011) observe, social policy refers to government programs or organizations that seek to ensure equality of condition (such as unemployment insurance, public healthcare, and pensions) and equality of opportunity (such as public primary, secondary, and tertiary education) among citizens. Social programs tend to fall into one of three categories: social assistance, where targeted interventions are made to support the disadvantaged, paid out of general tax revenues; social insurance, typically funded through recipient contributions and state subsidy, administered by some combination of employers, labour unions, religious or community organizations, and the state; and universal services and benefits in areas like healthcare and education. Taken together, these policies constitute what is commonly referred to as the welfare state. The level and type of support provided varies according to the dominant ideologies of the political community in which the welfare state is embedded. Esping- Anderson (1990) differentiates between three types of welfare states: conservative regimes, characterized by programs that seek to preserve the social structure; liberal regimes, where the provision of welfare is left to the market, with the state intervening only when the market fails to produce desirable results through means- or income-tested forms of social assistance; and social democratic regimes featuring universal benefits and equal access to services as a benefit of citizenship. Esping-Anderson describes these categories as ideal types, “allowing for the empirical possibility that within each cluster, some countries might be more typical of it than others” (Laczko, 2005, p. 292 ). The UK and Canada, for example, while included in the liberal cluster, nevertheless possess some characteristics more typical of social democratic regimes. Certain kinds of social policy will be favoured depending on the ideological orientation of the welfare state in question (Esping-Anderson, 1990). In liberal welfare regimes – such as Canada and the United Kingdom – educational policies often take precedence over pension or income security schemes, as these jurisdictions tend to emphasize equality of opportunity over equality of condition. Depending on the ideological context, then, education may become the centrepiece of a given welfare state and a central focus for social policy. Indeed, education has always been seen as part of the welfare state, no matter its ideological orientation, and an essential area of social policy (Willemse & de Beer, 2012, p. 106). T.H. Marshall, one of the early welfare state theorists, observed, “the institutions most closely connected with [social rights and the welfare state] are the educational system and the social services” (1992 [1950], p. 8). Higher education is similarly important as an area of social policy, and policies designed to promote access to college and university are
13 seen as measures to increase equality of opportunity. As Pechar and Andres (2011) note, “after World War II, higher education was incorporated as an essential part of a coherent welfare-policy structure” (p. 24) to satisfy the needs of both returning military servicemen and the rapidly expanding middles classes of western industrialized nations. Education cuts across the categories of social programs found within the welfare state. In the majority of modern industrial nations, primary and secondary schooling is provided as a universal service, funded through tax revenue and available to every citizen (although these public systems can also exist alongside varying degrees of private provision). Higher and further education is more complicated. Entry to higher education, particularly universities, is almost always meritocratic, meaning it cannot be properly considered universal, although some systems come close. During the 20th century, many nations, in the West and in the Soviet bloc, completely subsidized the cost of postsecondary learning, allowing qualified students to study without incurring tuition fees. In other jurisdictions, such as the United States, subsidized public provision developed alongside parallel and robust private institutions. While free tuition can be seen as similar to other examples of universal public services, it is always limited and reach and inconsistent in application from a comparative national perspective. Under pressure of rapidly expanding systems and constrained budgets, governments have increasingly moved towards a mixed-funding model that includes lower levels of state subsidization accompanied by higher tuition fees to fill the resulting funding gap. In systems where these trends are present, they resemble even less the universal services available in social democratic states. State support of higher education systems - and higher education students - more and more takes the form of student financial aid. The state provides grants and favourable-term loans to students to support their participation in the postsecondary system. This policy is properly seen as a form of social assistance, means- or income-tested subsidy meant to create equality of opportunity where the relatively high cost of attendance may deter lower-income or marginalized students from attending. So constructed, financial aid is a classic expression of a liberal welfare state policy preference. With functional definitions of nationalism, nations, and social policy, it is possible to explore the relationship between all three constructs. The “nationalism-social policy nexus” is a term advanced by Béland and Lecours (2008) to describe the dynamic relationship between sub-state national movements and the provisions of social programs. They advance six “theoretical claims” of how this relationship will affect social policy in both the sub-state region and in the central state:
14 1. In developed multinational countries, both the state and at least one sub‐state government are likely to use social policy to foster and promote competing national solidarities and identities. 2. Social policy often becomes a major component of the effort of nationalist movements to build and consolidate national identity, and an important target for nationalist mobilization as well. 3. The focus of nationalist movements on social policy is not simply the product of economic self‐interest, yet references to the fairness of financial transfers between territorial entities become effective mobilization strategies. 4. It is intrinsic to the nature of contemporary (sub‐state) nationalism that it puts forward claims about the existence of a national unit of solidarity where co‐nationals have a special obligation to each other's welfare, a situation viewed as being best fulfilled by having control over social policy. 5. Independently of the concrete effect of nationalist movements on policy outcomes, sub‐state nationalism impacts the policy agenda and the framing processes that shape the debates over social policy and territorial solidarity in multinational states. 6. The consequences of sub‐state nationalism for social policy development are variable, and the presence of strong nationalist movements does not necessarily favour an erosion of welfare at the state or sub‐state level (p. 19).
As they demonstrate in their analysis, each of these elements are present, albeit in varying degrees, in Quebec, Scotland, and Flanders. Taken together, these theoretical claims speak convincingly of the power of social policy to “flag” the existence of a nation and mobilize citizens around a particular political program. From where does social policy derive this power? The answer lies in the unique ability of social policy to connect with the daily lives of citizens. Law and Mooney (2012) observe that:
Social programmes are more likely than other types of programmes to touch people in everyday life and engender territorial solidarity. As a consequence, governments that provide an array of social programmes establish direct, intimate, and tangible links with the nation being governed (p. 162).
Similarly, Béland and Lecours (2005) note, “social policy is frequently at the heart of the idea of the community and is, therefore, connected with sets of collective values” (p. 679). Social policies and programs are therefore a “potent nation-building tool” (Law & Mooney, 2012, p. 679). McEwan (2002) further observes that a “comprehensive system of social welfare can thus serve to reinforce identification with, belonging to and consent for the national state” (p. 68). It is therefore not surprising that sub-state national movements should seek to control social policy, and to pursue a social agenda that sets it apart from the overarching state in the minds of their citizens.
15 In the service of their political projects, nationalist sub-state governments seek to position themselves as both the expression of the shared values and identity of the nation, and as the protectors of these values against encroachment by the larger state (Béland & Lecours, 2005). An activist social policy agenda works to advance both of these goals. Nationalist leaders also argue that independence is the only way to secure the distinct values and identity of the sub-state nation, as expressed through its unique social policies. As Béland and Lecours (2005) argue:
Nationalist leaders can also suggest that autonomy or independence is needed for their community because it pursues fundamentally different social and economic objectives from the other (p. 679).
Social policy is therefore a powerful way for nationalist sub-state governments to link their policies with the shared values and identity of a nascent nation, and to bind these values to a vision of an independent state. Given the importance of social policy to sub-state national movements, it is not unusual for political parties and governments aligned with these movements to adopt a left- of-centre, or even social democratic, ideological orientation. Social democracy, with its emphasis on universal benefits and services as a right of citizenship, implies an extensive and activist social policy agenda (Esping-Anderson, 1990; Pechar & Andres, 2011). Since access to universal programs in a social democratic system is granted through citizenship, these services “have long been framed in terms of national unity and solidarity” (Béland and Lecours, 2008, p. 18). A social democratic political program is therefore an ideal platform from which to launch a nation-building social policy agenda. The nationalist political parties in Scotland and Quebec – the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Parti Québécoise (PQ) – are both noted for policy positions significantly to the left of the United Kingdom and Canada generally, and closer to social democratic ideology (Béland & Lecours, 2005; 2008; Pechar & Andres, 2011). In the Catalonia region of Spain, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), or Republican Left of Catalonia, for many years the party most closely associated with outright independence1, is a progressive political party that favours a left-of-centre approach to policy (Dowling, 2009). The Flanders region of Belgium is a notable exception to this tendency, with the Flemish nationalist movement being somewhat neo-liberal in orientation. Debates around social insurance and the welfare state in Belgium are focused not
1 Until the founding of the Crida Nacional per la República, or National Call for the Republic (CNxR), a coalition of nationalist parties across the political spectrum
16 on an activist policy agenda, but rather a desire for greater regional control, fueled by the perception that Flanders is contributing too much towards a social insurance and assistance program that overly benefits the citizens of Wallonia. It should be noted that many of the modern multinational democracies associated with regional nationalist movements - Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain - fall into Esping- Anderson’s liberal welfare state cluster, with Belgium belonging more to the conservative typology. None of them are considered social democracies at the central-state level. This suggests that in addition to the activist social policy agenda implied by a social democratic orientation, this political position is also a useful point of contrast with the central state, further reinforcing solidarity within the sub-state region. Sub-state nationalists are not necessarily social democrats, and nationalist parties may adopt left-wing social policies as a matter of political expediency rather than deep ideological conviction. However, from the literature it is clear that a more social democratic orientation is useful to sub-state nationalists both in terms of its ability to connect government activity to shared political values and identity and act as a differentiator with the larger liberal market state. But control over an active social policy agenda is not by itself a sufficient condition for the mobilization of nationalist sentiment. As Keating (2009) notes, “independence is about the ability of a nation to mount its own economic and social development project” (p. 101). If a nationalist movement is to be successful, it must convince its political community that it is able to meet social needs while stimulating economic growth and prosperity. Education generally – and higher education in particular – is a useful policy area because it allows a government to demonstrate competence in both social and economic affairs (Arnott & Ozga, 2012). Modern universities contain and support a variety of different activities, each useful to the state in different ways. Through undergraduate, graduate and professional education, universities produce the skilled labour needed for economic growth, while the research and innovation produced by universities can be spun off into new job-creating enterprises, or even whole new industries. At the same time, policies that promote access to higher education can increase social mobility and economic equality. Universities may also partner with communities, industry or governments directly – activities often described as service, or more recently, innovation/knowledge mobilization – to meet specific needs or address certain challenges. Together, these modern institutions operate as “multiversities” (Fallis, 2007), able to satisfy social, political and economic ends through their different functions. The multi-faceted role of universities thus gives higher education policy broad appeal across the political spectrum. As such, Pechar & Andres (2011) conclude that public
17 funding of higher education and policies that encourage participation across socio-economic classes are therefore common in both liberal and social democratic welfare regimes. In addition to its ability to function as both social and economic policy, postsecondary education has long been connected to the political construction and consolidation of modern nation states. As Clark (1986) observes, universities are viewed by national governments as “a basic sector for nation-building efforts, from the training of essential experts to the building of national culture and consensus” (p. 153). Similarly, Neave (2001) observes that in 19th century Europe, universities were viewed as “a symbol and as a repository of national identity, as an instrument for the preservation of the nation’s culture and through the unification of that culture as a manifestation of that country’s claims to a place among the nations” (p. 26). Paterson (2003a) observes that the political interest in higher education throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries “had primarily social goals in mind: educating a future ruling class, and providing equal opportunities to enter it; maintaining and developing the nation’s culture; providing people and expertise that might help the national economy to compete globally” (p. 68). This quality of universities – to simultaneously serve the needs of national development while embodying a set of national values – can be thought of as their “inherent” nation-building capability. After its humiliation at the Battle of Jena in 1807, Prussia turned to the Humboldtian university model to spur modernization (Perkin, 2007). In France, the state-dominated system of universities and Grande Écoles helped to extend the unitary state over a plurality of medieval identities (Neave, 2001). In 17th century Scotland, universities became the vehicles of a national enlightenment. The power of universities to drive national development – in terms of culture, economy, and political citizenship – is an idea that enjoys a long historical pedigree, one that has persisted through the 20th century and into the 21st. It is logical that sub-state nation-building movements should seek to harness this inherent power to support their own independence projects. The importance of higher education in the minds of voters has also increased, further enhancing its usefulness to sub-state nationalist governments. In Martin Trow’s formulation (1973), higher education systems around the world – and particularly in the English-speaking nations – have undergone a shift from “elite” to “mass” to “universal” provision. In other words, they have moved from systems that served a small, usually privileged, segment of the population to train the next generation of civil servants, professionals and political leaders, to a system where access is open to a much wider demographic and higher education takes on a variety of new forms. For Trow (1973), a system becomes “universal” when participation of the relevant age cohort exceeds 50 per cent. By that measure, systems in the United States,
18 Canada and the UK have arguably already achieved universal access, where attendance is seen less as a privilege or a right, and more of an obligation (Trow, 1973, p. 7). This reality greatly changes the political significance of the higher education system. In a universal system, “increasingly large portions of the population begin to be affected by it, either through their own past or present attendance, or that of some friend or relative” (Trow, 1973, p. 12). To this growing group of participants and their families, we can also add those who hope that either they or a child will attend a university. All of these individuals are therefore interested in how higher education is administered and supported by the state. This group of participants and aspirants forms a formidable voting bloc, attractive to any political party. As systems have grown, the place of higher education on the political agenda has thus also expanded. It has also been suggested that universities can function as “cultural museums” (Tierney, 1993), as guardians of a canon of literature, ideas, and values specific to a given culture or national context. Universities define and determine the values and the intellectual tradition that comprise a given society’s cultural heritage, and are tasked with transmitting “the traditions and truths that have been handed down generation to generation” (Tierney, 1993, p. 134) to both developing nation states and to sub-state nations seeking to preserve distinct national identities. By delineating the contours of a particular culture or nation, universities are important sites for the construction of what is within the national community, and what is “other.” The idea of the university as a cultural museum has its origins in a conservative critique of the modern university. These critics have argued that contemporary epistemological movements – such as post-modernism, feminism, post-colonialism, and de- constructivism – have undermined the ability of the university to transmit necessary intellectual truths, to the detriment of students, academe, and the overarching coherence of national (often American) culture. Tierney (1993) highlights Bloom (1987), D’Souza (1991), and Kimball (1990) as exemplars of this school of thought. The critique is often somewhat alarmist: the sub-title of Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind is the breathless “How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students.” Tierney is justifiably critical of the “cultural museum” idea, suggesting that it has “attracted the most attention” among the general public, while being “the least representative of those individuals involved in academe.” It presents a highly exclusionary model of the university, one at odds with the diverse institutions that actually exist today. However, the kernel at the heart of the cultural museum idea is that universities historically functioned as a mechanism
19 to define and transmit national culture. This may no longer be a desirable – or even accurate – description, but it does further support the inherent nation-building capacity of universities. This tour of the literature leaves us with several key insights. First, modern nation states are not necessarily unitary, but may contain many competing political identities and nations. Second, that nationalism is not a political aberration, the product of negative emotion. Rather, it is an ideology that creates and sustains nations in a multitude of banal, quotidian ways. Third, social policy is a powerful tool for sub-state national movements to connect shared values and identity to a vision of an independent nation. Fourth, higher education is a particularly useful type of social policy in this context, as it has both economic and social elements, and possesses broad appeal across ideological positions. As social policy, it helps connect government activity with shared values and identity. As economic policy, it allows the government to demonstrate its competence in managing economic affairs. Given its broad ideological appeal, higher education policy can also build support with citizens who may not share the political convictions of the nationalist movement. Finally, by dint of the social, cultural, political, and economic activities that occur within them – not least the ability to act as an institution of cultural continuity – universities possess an inherent nation-building capability useful to any independence project. The literature also suggests how Scotland’s independence movement might influence higher education policy. If this is indeed an example of the nationalism-social policy nexus in action, we might expect the Scottish Government, and specifically the Scottish National Party (SNP), to attempt to connect its higher education policies to notions about Scottish national identity, and to use policy making in this sphere to demonstrate its competence as managers of the state and the economy. We might further expect to see the SNP use higher education policy as a differentiator from the central UK state, and cast its own policies as more in line with shared Scottish values. More to the point, the SNP will likely also portray the central UK state as a threat to Scotland’s unique values, acting to imperil unique Scottish policy arrangements. As the following analysis will establish, all of these dynamics are at work in Scotland, driving significant policy divergence from the UK. However, as will be demonstrated, the actual power of higher education policy to drive nationalist mobilization is far from clear.
20 3. Methodology
The nationalism social-policy nexus is a challenging concept to assess in practice, particularly in the context of a complex and politically fraught referendum campaign. It requires an observer to look beyond the stated goals of a given social policy and consider the implicit motivations behind the policy design to understand how it is being used to further a sub-state nationalist cause. To get at these implicit objectives, I deployed a multi-faceted research design that generated both quantitative and qualitative data that allowed me to examine the role of higher education in the Scottish independence debate. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the individual components of my methodology and how I used them to evaluate my hypotheses. If the nationalism-social policy nexus is a valid theoretical concept, we would expect that, in a sub-state region with a nationalist project, social policy will be used by political actors to marshal support for or against greater regional autonomy. I hypothesized that higher education, as a subset of social policy, was - and continues to be - used by nationalist politicians in Scotland to reinforce notions of distinctiveness and national identity, thereby building confidence in, and political attachment to, the idea of an independent Scottish state. If this assertion is true, higher education policy should have played a significant role in the campaign leading up to the Independence Referendum held on September 18, 2014. Within this framework, my supposition was that the Scottish National Party, as the political torch- bearers of the independence movement, would position universities within their referendum campaign as an important part of Scottish identity and as leading institutions in an independent Scotland. The SNP would then use its higher education policies to suggest that it is both the protector and promoter of Scottish values and identity and that only independence can preserve the distinctiveness of Scotland's higher education tradition. Conversely, I expected that opponents of independence would emphasize the underlying uncertainty of independence against the well-known contours of the status quo, focusing their arguments on practical issues and the potential negative consequences of independence on the higher education sector. My methodology had four components: a review of both the scholarly and grey literature relevant to higher education in Scotland; a content analysis of print media stories appearing in the year prior to the referendum vote; key informant interviews with policymakers, journalists, university leaders and academics; and an examination of several comparative case studies that enrich our understanding of the nationalism-social policy nexus
21 in the context of higher education. Throughout the analysis, particular attention was paid to Scottish universities, although the further education colleges also received some consideration.
Review of secondary sources
The goal of the secondary source review was to illuminate the historical and political circumstances relevant to the relationship between higher education policy and nationalism in Scotland. A detailed understanding of how Scotland has been constructed as a distinct administrative and political unit within the United Kingdom, and how this distinctiveness has informed Scottish nationalism, is crucial to the analysis of the role played by higher education in the contemporary independence debate. The review evaluated the merits of the historical claim that Scotland possesses a distinct tradition of higher education, essential for understanding if and how higher education is connected to modern notions of Scottish identity and how it might function as a political motivator. The literature review also examined the pattern of policy convergence and divergence between Scotland and the UK that occurred throughout the 20th and early-21st centuries, as well as the actual manifestations of higher education policy that happened within the confines of the independence debate. The review focused on three main types of material: scholarly publications, government documents and campaign documents produced by the “Yes” and “No” campaigns in advance of the referendum vote. Scholars have paid significant attention to the origins and nature of Scottish nationalism, and this material helped form the brief political history found in chapter three of this dissertation. Less analysis has been done on the distinctiveness of Scotland's higher education system. Still, there are a variety of in-depth studies useful in constructing the parameters of the Scottish tradition, such as the works of R.D. Anderson (1983) and Lindsay Paterson (2003b), among others, discussed in detail in chapters four and five. In terms of the grey literature surrounding higher education, nationalism and the independence debate, both the UK and Scottish Governments, and the various political parties in both parliaments, have produced large amounts of relevant material. Not least among these sources are the periodic and large-scale public commissions that have examined the Scottish and UK higher education sectors. A discovery-based approach was used to identify relevant materials. A preliminary list of scholarly work was identified through a library search. A broader list of documents was then generated from the bibliographies of these articles and books. Similarly, I identified the
22 relevant grey literature in an iterative process. Particular foundational works - such as the reports of the Robbins and Dearing Committees and the SNP government’s independence white paper - referenced other materials which were then pulled into the analysis. In this way, a comprehensive collection of government and political materials was assembled. Additional documents were identified through the key informant interviews and were subsequently included in the analysis. As this portion of the methodology is more akin to a standard literature review than an actual documentary analysis, no formal analysis methodology was used. Relevant material was reviewed in depth and incorporated into the theoretical framework as appropriate. The references section contains a complete list of this material.
Content analysis
A content analysis was conducted to examine how higher education was covered in the print media during the referendum campaign, and what patterns of coverage were discernible across the various news outlets. Data collection was confined to articles appearing in UK-based publications between September 18, 2013, and September 18, 2014, the date of the referendum vote. I conducted a search through the ProQuest database for material that contained keywords relevant to both universities/higher education and the referendum campaign. An internet search identified additional articles, which were then added to the overall sample. This process produced a collection of 877 items. The analysis revealed that this sample contained a large number of false positives - for example, an article which quoted an academic on a topic relevant to the referendum campaign would often reference that individual's university affiliation, generating a hit on the word "university" in a referendum- related piece. The search also returned a large number of letters to the editor. I excluded these items as out of scope for the analysis. Further exclusion of articles that were either not from the UK or Scotland, or not substantively about higher education or higher education policy, produced an analytic sample of 213 articles. A primary challenge when analyzing media sources – particularly on a controversial topic – is the sheer quantity of material that may be involved. Researchers developed the content analysis methodology to deal with large volumes of material in a systematic way (Bauer, 2000). Deacon et al. (1999) describe content analysis as "a method that aims to produce a 'big picture' (delineating trends, patterns, and absences over large aggregates of text)" (p. 117). It is therefore "well suited to the 'massness' of mass media" (p.177). Riff et al. (1998) highlight the ability of content analysis to "reduce communication phenomena to
23 manageable data from which inferences may be drawn about the phenomena themselves" (p. 19). Content analysis allows researchers to "skate over complex and varied processes of meaning within texts,” and focus on manifest patterns of meaning across texts (Deacon et al., 1999, p. 117). As such, it is an appropriate methodology for exploring the large body of material produced during the Scottish referendum, facilitating an analysis of the patterns of meaning that emerge around higher education and independence in the public discourse. There are, however, limitations to content analysis. Since it requires some degree of interpretation on the part of the researcher, replicability and reliability become issues. As Deacon et al. (1999) note, content analysis involves "essentially arbitrary decisions at all stages of the research process: what you count, how much you want to sample, how you categorize, etc.; and all of these decisions are produced by the researcher's subjective judgment of what is significant" (p. 131). While impossible to eliminate completely, it is possible to mitigate the level of subjectivity through research design. Content analysis should therefore be confined to the manifest level of meaning to prevent interpretation errors (Riffe, et al., 1998). Researchers should resist the temptation to "read between the lines" and instead limit analysis to a description of surface meaning within the text. It is also advisable to be cautious when drawing generalized conclusions from content analysis. With these methodological considerations in mind, I assessed the analytic sample through a 25-question coding frame. The development of the frame was guided by the goal of reducing the overall level of subjective interpretation while still producing useful data. The coding frame focuses on descriptive rather than interpretive variables and seeks to measure:
• The timeframe of the document (when the article appeared, by month, during the referendum campaign). • The source of the document (whether the article appeared in a publication based in Scotland or the rest of the UK). • Whether the article is substantively about higher education policy or references it in a minor way. • What aspect of higher education policy is discussed by the article (tuition fee policy, research funding, tuition fees for EU/UK students, further education colleges)? • Whether higher education is presented as connected to the referendum debate or is brought up in the item as a separate issue. • Whether the article is an opinion piece, and if so, whether that opinion appears to be for or against independence.
24 • Who is the “main character(s)” of the article - students, faculty, politicians, etc.? • Whether the quotes in the article tend to favour a pro-independence, pro-Union or neutral stance in the debate. • How the article frames the effect of independence on the higher education sector - positive, negative, or mixed? • What putative Scottish values are referenced by the article, if any (fairness, social justice, etc.) and are these values connected to higher education? • Whether the article references the perceived importance of the higher education sector to Scotland’s economy. • The extent to which the article references policies in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and how it compares these policies to arrangements in Scotland.
The coding frame was piloted on a small sub-sample using three coders to determine the efficacy of the instrument. Problematic items - those with low agreement among coders or those identified by coders as vague or confusing to answer - were revised, and I used this updated coding frame for the full data collection. In content analysis, inter-rater reliability (IRR), sometimes known as inter-coder reliability (ICR), is one method used to determine the validity of the instrument. A researcher can determine the IRR by generating a random sample of articles used in the analysis, which are then assessed by at least one additional coder. As per Bauer's (2000) advice, the second coder should be trained and "sensitized" to work effectively with the coding frame. One way of calculating IRR is to simply determine the rate of agreement between the coders, expressed as a per cent. A per cent agreement of 75 per cent is often considered to be a sufficient indicator of reliability. A more sophisticated method is to use the statistical test Cohen’s Kappa, which accounts for potential chance agreement between the coders (McHugh, 2012). Two additional coders analyzed a random sample of 25 articles from the analytic sample. For this study, both per cent agreement and the Cohen’s Kappa was calculated for each item. Taken together, this is a robust test of reliability by the standards of content analysis, both in terms of the use of three coders and in the application of the Kappa statistic. Overall, the average per cent agreement for the content analysis instrument was 80.7 per cent, which is a strong result. The average Cohen’s Kappa result - a much higher statistical bar - was 0.457, which is “moderate” by the standards laid out by Landis and Koch (1977). Given the inherent subjectivity of assessment implied in content analysis, this is also an acceptable result. The content analysis results are therefore acceptably valid and reliable, although some
25 caution should still be exercised in extending the conclusions beyond the analytic sample examined in this dissertation.
Key informant interviews
Key informant interviews were the most analytically significant component of my methodology. The connection between higher education policy, nationalism, and the independence referendum is complicated. By speaking with those who are deeply involved with both Scottish higher education and the independence movement, it was possible to illuminate these complex and dynamic relationships. I therefore sought interviews with policymakers, higher education leaders, journalists and academics close to the independence debate in Scotland, each either working within the sector or otherwise focused on the sector as all or part of their professional responsibilities. The purpose of these interviews was to determine:
• The degree to which respondents believe that a distinct tradition of higher education exists in Scotland, and whether they connected this tradition to notions of Scottish identity. • Whether Scottish citizens view higher education institutions as playing a particular role in Scottish society. • How various actors use higher education for political purposes in Scotland? • What role, if any, higher education policy played in the referendum campaign? • Whether higher education policy, as constructed in Scotland, is politically motivating for voters, either within the referendum campaign or in the regular electoral cycle. • The efficacy of current policy in achieving its stated objectives, e.g. increasing access for lower socio-economic groups. • Whether they view policy divergence in Scottish higher education as a consequence of nationalism, or as the product of other political and social factors.
I also used the interviews to enhance my understanding of the Scottish higher education system and its unique policymaking environment. The interview protocol was developed from the guiding questions above, based on the themes and policy dynamics gleaned from my review of the literature. The questions were intended to provide a clear focus to the discussion, but were also designed to prompt
26 respondents to follow their own lines of thought. The interviews were semi-structured in the sense that all respondents were asked the same basic questions, but leeway was given for additional questions and discussion points that arose organically through the conversation. Given the complexity of the topic and the deep subject-matter expertise of the respondents, this semi-structured method was chosen to generate a baseline of comparable data while creating space for unanticipated discussion that enriched the analysis. The interview protocol can be found in Appendix B. Interview participants were chosen according to their membership in the following groups of analytical interest:
• Politicians and civil servants with knowledge of the higher education sector (i.e. cabinet secretaries, opposition critics) • Professionals who worked in or around the higher education sector (i.e. university administrators, journalists, lobbyists) • Academics with particular knowledge of either higher education in the United Kingdom or Scottish politics • Academics active in the referendum campaign (i.e. members of formal campaigning groups such as Academics for Yes and Academics Together)
Research ethics approval was sought and received from the University of Toronto’s Social Sciences, Humanities and Education Research Ethics Board. All participants were given the option of remaining anonymous. Approximately 30 invitations to a 60-minute interview were sent out, and 22 individuals ultimately agreed to participate. This group included:
• Two politicians, one from the Scottish National Party and one from the Scottish Liberal Democrats (no member of the Scottish Labour Party would agree to an interview) • One former senior civil servant who previously managed the university finance and student financial aid files in Scotland • One senior policy director for a university sector advocacy organization • Two university principals, one from an ancient university and one from a post-92 institution • Two senior university administrators
27 • Two academics who played respective spokesperson roles in the pro-independence "Academic for Yes" campaign group and the pro-Union "Academics Together" • One journalist from a major Scottish daily paper • One leader of a pro-independence campaign group, with experience in the university sector • Eight academics working in Scottish universities who possess research specialties in education, Scottish politics and public opinion
The political and policy issues implicit in this project's research questions became more salient around the actual referendum date, so I attempted to interview as many respondents as possible within two weeks of the referendum vote during a research trip to Scotland in September of 2014. In the end, 17 interviews were held within two weeks of the voting day. Due to scheduling difficulties, five additional interviews were held via Skype. The final interview was conducted in the summer of 2015. While this was somewhat outside the original research window, I felt the conversation was sufficiently useful (a former cabinet member of the SNP government) to justify its inclusion in the study. In most cases, the interviews ran for about 45 minutes, with the shortest being ~20 minutes and the longest being nearly 90 minutes in length. Most of the respondents agreed to have their responses associated with their names and positions, while three participants requested anonymity. For the sake of consistency, I use general descriptors (i.e. "senior administrator”) to attribute direct quotations rather than full names and precise positions. I also try to place the individual, where appropriate, in relation to the particular type of university in which they work. I use “ancient university” to describe St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, “Robbins university” to refer to institutions founded during the post-war expansionary period, and “post-92 university” to refer to those institutions upgraded to university status following Margaret Thatcher’s 1992 reforms. A complete list of participants - minus those requesting anonymity - can be found in Appendix C. All of the interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were entered into NVivo 12 for analysis, and coded into five thematic areas - policy issues, values & identity, referendum campaign, system characteristics and Scottish tradition. Within each area, between five to 14 sub areas were used to further filter the content (a complete list of these thematic “nodes” - to use NVivo’s parlance - can be found in Appendix D). The coding structure was developed through close reading of the interview transcripts, and allowed for detailed exploration of the themes that emerged through the course of the interviews, both
28 within and across each of the research conversations. This approach is consistent with some of the key principles articulated by Creswell (2012) on effective qualitative research - it is inductive, in the sense that analysis proceeds from the details of specific cases to the development of general themes; requires simultaneous analysis and collection of data through an iterative process, where the investigator re-frames the analytical approach as new data is added; and where analysis of the data is ultimately interpretive, where a personal judgement is made as to how the data is ultimately categorized (p. 238). Through this inductive process, I was able to generate a rich, cross-comparable collection of data that allowed me to assess and respond to the research question at the centre of this dissertation.
Comparative case studies
Finally, this dissertation develops several case studies of comparable jurisdictions that allow for a better assessment of the relationship between the nationalism-social policy nexus and higher education policy. These case studies - which together make up chapter nine – include the Canadian province of Quebec, the Catalonia region of Spain, and the Flanders region of Belgium. Each of these regions have significant public higher education sectors, subject to government policy, but also contain well-established nationalist movements. They are therefore excellent comparators that can illuminate whether higher education in Scotland is a unique example of the nationalism-social policy nexus, of if similar trends can be found in educational policymaking in Canada, Spain and Belgium. For each case, I briefly describe the characteristics of their higher education systems, followed by an analysis of whether, and how, sub-state nationalism may be influencing policy dynamics in the jurisdiction in question. Of particular interest is how nationalism might be driving policy divergence from the central state, and whether political actors use higher education policy to mobilize support for or against a nationalist or independence political project. The case studies are not meant to be comprehensive, but are instead intended to highlight trends and developments relevant to the examination of higher education policy in Scotland. Due to resource and language constraints, I relied on secondary sources to build each case study. A significant amount of scholarship has been conducted on social policy and the welfare state in these regions, but relatively little has been written on higher education in the context of the nationalism-social policy nexus. These case studies facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the political dynamics in Scotland, but will also help connect the existing higher education literature in these regions with the broader literature on
29 the politics of social policy. Usefully, they help delineate a series of characteristics that must be present for higher education to play a role in nationalist debates (as in Scotland and Quebec). Likewise, the absence of these characteristics will tend to preclude the nationalism- social policy nexus from influencing policy development in the higher education space. Overall, this four-part analysis provided an effective framework for assessing how higher education policy interacted with Scottish nationalism, and what role it played in the referendum debate. Before proceeding with this analysis, it is necessary to first make a historical detour. The Scottish Government - or indeed any sub-state government - cannot simply embark upon an ambitious program of higher education reform and expect it to automatically generate public support for a political program focused on independence. As the literature suggests, the power of social policy to mobilize nationalist sentiment is politically and historically contingent. To begin with, the citizens of the region must possess a shared national identity. That identity must in some way contain shared values that can be meaningfully flagged by higher education policy. Perhaps most crucially, these values must be seen as under threat from the larger state. For the social policy-nationalism nexus to influence higher education policy in Scotland, each of these elements must be present. The following chapter presents a brief political history of Scotland and Scottish nationalism to help contextualize the contemporary independence debate and the historical role of higher.
30 4. A (Very) Brief History of the Scottish Nation
Has there ever been such a thing as the Scottish nation? If so, is it still politically salient for people living in Scotland today? The answers to these questions are “yes, with some caveats” and “yes, but it is complicated.” Much of the controversy around Scottish nationalism flows from these ambiguities, and shapes the contemporary independence debate. This chapter will explore the political dimensions of the Scottish nation from medieval times to the eve of the 2014 referendum vote. It will necessarily be a somewhat limited account, as grappling with the political history of a unique people over eight centuries is something better suited to a lifetime of scholarship than a single dissertation chapter. Nevertheless, I hope this brief historical review illustrates the essential point that political union with England did not end the idea of a Scottish nation. In fact, Union to some extent preserved the idea of a distinct and semi-autonomous political community and policy sphere, and created space where Scots could exercise their own preferences and adapt Westminster legislation to their own particular needs. The lack of a totalizing UK state has meant that the institutions of Scottish nationhood have survived and even thrived within Union. As the UK state expanded in the years following the Second World War, the new programs and services of the welfare state helped bind these institutions to the UK state through a conception of social citizenship. Throughout the 20th century, the Scottish commitment to Union began to break down, which in turn led to a rise in pro-independence sentiment and ultimately to the independence referendum. This rise in nationalism is evinced by public polling data which suggests that more Scots now identify with Scottish identity over a British one, indicating that some form of nationalism will continue to be a political force in Scotland for the foreseeable future (ScotCen, 2018). The retrenchment of the British welfare state, beginning in the late 1970s, and the rise of European integration help explain this decline in Union support, but offer an incomplete explanation. Nor is it correct to say that the modern rise in nationalism is the re- assertion of the medieval Scottish proto-state. Rather, the ways in which Scottish institutions and the distinct Scottish polity were allowed to exist and grow as part of the UK since Union has led to a territorially bounded expression or political identity and will in Scotland- a will that is now advocating for more control.
31 From Conflict to Union
Scotland has always been a somewhat obstinate political entity. The Romans had great difficulty pacifying the Picts, the indigenous inhabitants of Ancient Scotland. Even after routing the Pictish tribes at the Battle of Mons Graupius in A.D. 83, Roman occupation of Scotland was never total. At no point did the Romans manage to control more than half of Scotland’s landmass and the legions eventually found it expedient to retire behind Hadrian’s Wall (Hanson, 2003). While resistant to Roman arms, the Picts had no defense against the force of human movement. By the 10th century, owing to several centuries of migration, immigration, and conflict, Scotland had in effect become a multicultural society. The Picts melted into an amalgam of Scots (Gaelic people originally from Ireland), Britons (the Gaels from south of Hadrian’s Wall), Angles, and Scandinavians (Lynch, 1992, p. 12). This jumble of ancient tribes and peoples proved no more amenable to external control. After their victory at Hastings in 1066, the Normans gradually expanded into Scotland, establishing several noble families with extensive land holdings. Despite these ties to the Norman king in England, the question of Scottish fealty to the English crown was always controversial. Matters came to a head in the Wars of Scottish Independence, which lasted from 1296 to 1357, pitting the Kingdom of Scotland against the Kingdom of England. This was the time of the great Scottish national hero, William Wallace, and also of the Declaration of Arbroath (c. 1320 CE), a bold statement of independence in the form of a letter to Pope John XXII sealed by a group of 51 magnates and nobles:
As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself (National Records of Scotland, 2020).
Significantly, by constructing the Kingdom of Scotland as a “community of realm,” it is clear that the nobles who affixed their mark to the Declaration saw themselves as members of an independent political entity, one that they were prepared to defend with their lives (Béland & Lecours, 2008, p. 98). By the conclusion of the Wars of Independence, Scotland had indeed successfully preserved the independence of its monarchical realm. However, it was not a “nation” as the term is understood today. As Keating (2009) notes, “Scotland existed before Union but not as a modern state and society” (p. 3). Although a distinct kingdom, it is arguable whether Scotland was ever truly independent from England. Among scholars, there are “endless arguments about the old Scottish state and whether it ever
32 successfully asserted sovereignty” (Keating, 2009, p. 9). The absolute sovereignty of Parliament was a fundamental principle asserted by the pre-1707 English parliament and continued into the post-Union period. The old Scottish Parliament never asserted such a right. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Scotland still possessed the trappings of independence – its own monarch and its own parliament - and a popular sense that it was politically distinct from England. In 1603, after the Tudor dynasty had exhausted itself without producing a male heir, the Stuart king of Scotland, James VI, ascended the throne of England and Ireland, becoming James I of England. This “Union of the Crowns” forged a strong political link between the two kingdoms. Over the following century – which saw the English Civil War, the execution of one Stuart king, the natural death of another, and the banishment of the last – there was a growing consensus among the noble and merchant classes in both nations that a closer political alignment would be desirable. For England, union was a matter of national security (Devine, 2012, p. 8). At the beginning of the 18th century, the War of Spanish Succession was raging between several European powers, including England and France. The “Auld Alliance” between the now- deposed Catholic Stuart monarchs and the Kings of France created an intolerable risk of a French-supported Stuart uprising in Scotland. Eager to avoid a proxy war in the north, England moved quickly to secure a political union. For Scotland, the reasons for union were primarily economic. The late 17th and early 18th centuries were a difficult time in Northern Europe, marked by crop failures and famine. Scotland, with limited exports and no empire of its own, could not compete with larger European powers, including England. As Greer (2007) notes, Scotland “was poorly positioned in the kill-or-be-killed geopolitical environment of early modern Europe” (p. 18). England also blocked Scottish trade with the new world, imposed significant tariffs on Scottish goods, and threatened to impose even higher tariffs prior to Union (Devine, 2012, p. 54). This overall climate of economic difficulty was exacerbated by the disastrous Darien scheme, an attempt to create a Scottish colony in what is now Panama. Beset by disease, opposition by England and the West India Company, and Spanish hostility, the colony quickly failed. Although blame for the collapse of the scheme was laid by many Scots at the feet of the English, the calamity wiped out a significant portion of Scotland’s liquid capital and hit the nobles and landowners particularly hard (Devine, 2012; 2016). In the face of English intransigence and hyper-competitive colonialism, the economic outlook for continued independence looked bleak, and Scotland had run out of options. Joining the United Kingdom
33 allowed Scotland better access to English and North American markets, and sparked a period of huge economic growth. Indeed, “unable to beat the great powers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, it joined (one of) them” (Greer, 2007, p.18). In 1707, the Scottish and English Parliaments passed the Act of Union, technically abolishing both, and vesting political authority for the new United Kingdom in a new Westminster parliament. Scotland, as an independent proto-state, had ceased to exist. But the Scottish nation, remarkably, continued.
The Pillars of Nation
The end of Scotland’s political autonomy did not cause the Scots to cease believing in Scotland as a distinct nation within the United Kingdom. Union was, at its heart, an elite settlement and it did not enjoy popular support (Devine, 2012, pp. 36-37). Resentment against Union helped fuel Jacobite (the movement to restore the Stuart dynasty to the English and Scottish thrones) uprisings in 1715 and 1745. The unrest ended with the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, followed by the harsh repression of the Highland clans. Thereafter, and with the economic benefits of Union slowly asserting themselves, outright opposition declined. The United Kingdom stitched itself together through economics, a social union embodied in the British welfare state, and a growing sense of shared “British” identity. This was aided by the unique nature of the Union settlement. As Keating (2009) notes:
The result was a constitution that could be interpreted in two ways. For the English, it was a mere expansion of the existing state and constitution, as shown by their continuing use of the words ‘England’ and ‘English’ with reference to it. For Scots, it was a union of nations, which some saw as the core of a new British nation, while others saw in it a protection of their own national status in a dangerous world (p. 18).
This was not a constitutionally codified federal arrangement, which meant in practice that it was always somewhat fluid and, at least for the Scots, open to negotiation (Keating, 2009, p.18). The political settlement represented by the Act of Union was also far from totalizing. It preserved Scotland’s most distinct institutions: the Church of Scotland, the Scottish legal system, and the unique Scottish educational system, including the Scottish universities (Bell, 2000; Keating, 2009). In Britain, “the scope of government has historically been less extensive than elsewhere,” such as in continental Europe, “allowing Scottish professions, the universities or sporting bodies to manage their own affairs” (Keating, 2009, p. 22). Scotland’s distinct institutions in turn helped support a vibrant and distinct civil society and a separate
34 political sphere that, while obviously embedded in the broader context of the UK, continued to “flag” - in Billig’s (1995) terminology - the existence of a distinct political community in Scotland. Just as the English and Scottish understood Union in different ways, within Scotland there existed “multiple Unionisms,” or different ways of understanding the role of Scotland within the UK and the impact of Union on Scottish politics, civil society and institutions (Cameron, 2016). Where support for Union was strong, it was usually as a result of nuanced understanding of how Scotland could thrive within its structures (Cameron, 2016; Keating, 2009) In terms of public policy and programs, the 150 years following Union saw Scotland continue to enjoy a degree of internal freedom, referred to as administrative devolution. In practice, this meant that Scotland had broad authority to implement legislation and policy developed by the Westminster Parliament according to its own particular context and needs. The task of policy administration first fell to a variety of supervisory boards, “local and national committees of lawyers, other professionals, and aristocrats who were put in charge of administrating all the subsequent social legislation that parliament produced in the nineteenth century” (Paterson, 1994, p. 51). These Boards gradually gave way to elected local governments and a native civil service, ensuring that policy implementation and administration had a decidedly Scots character. (Keating, 2009, p. 22). Beginning in the late 19th century, the British state chose to administer Scotland through a regional proxy – the Scotland Office – rather than a “large centralized bureaucracy or field administration”(Keating, 2009, p. 22). It was created in 1885 to formalize the administrative arrangements that had developed since Union. The Office was led by a Secretary for Scotland, renamed Secretary of State for Scotland in 1926, and was included in the governing cabinet after the First World War. This gave Scotland a powerful advocate within the UK government, able to lobby cabinet colleagues for resources and policy consideration. This arrangement helped preserve the idea of “Scotland as a political and not merely a cultural entity” (Mitchell, 2003, p. 2). Rather than threaten Scottish identity, the administrative and institutional arrangements of Union therefore “appear(ed) to be the means of preserving it” (Keating, 2009, p. 18). As a result of the accommodating nature of both the Act of Union and UK state, Scottish institutions have persisted and become important sources of Scottish identity. The Church, legal code, and education system have been described as the “three pillars of Scottish identity” (Patterson et al, 2001, p. 145). The continuity of unique Scottish institutions and the idea of a distinct Scottish political space help explain the “resilience of Scottish national identity in the absence of strong linguistic or cultural
35 markers” (Keating, 2009, p. 9) Keating (2009) further describes the accommodation of Scotland within the UK as a process of functional integration, where common language, political values and economic structures gradually built a shared polity across the UK. Other factors, such as conflict with other states and emerging class solidarity, also worked to build a more unified political community. From the beginning, Union was always dependent on a sense of shared economic benefits, first through empire and then through the post-war economic boom and the expanding social and personal benefits carried by the welfare state. But this process did not destroy the political concept of “Scottishness” as English notions of a unitary and continuous state preserved space for Scottish distinctiveness. Thus, “Scottishness remained as a resource to be used by political actors at critical times and was recreated by institutions and practices within the Union that sustained a distinct Scottish arena and ensured that politics would continue to have a Scottish dimension” (Keating, 2009, p. 22). While Union had preserved several key institutions of the Scottish nation – law, church and education – it also carried strong forces for integration. Beginning with the Union of the Crowns in 1607, the shared monarchy has been a uniting influence, an effective means of symbolically “flagging” Britain that persists to the present time (Keating, 2009). The imperative for access to, and participation in, England’s overseas empire has already been discussed, but it is important to reiterate how the immense economic benefits of Empire helped accommodate the merchant and political elites of Scotland to the political settlement contained within the Act of Union (for a more thorough discussion of this reality, see Devine, 2004 & 2012). The escalating pattern of armed conflict within Europe (and its colonial possessions) through the 19th and early 20th centuries also helped to forge a notion of “Britishness.” This process reached its zenith with the First and Second World Wars. As Keating (2009) notes,
Patriotism was exalted during the First World War, although the reference point was often still the Empire. By the Second World War, the homeland was the focus of loyalty, and patriotism was reinforced by the idea that the fight was in a just cause. Conscious efforts were made by government and the BBC to portray the nation as ‘Britain’ and avoid using ‘England’ as a synonym (p. 27)
The 20th century also saw the rise of a powerful integrating force, and one with especial relevance for the development of social policy, including higher education – the UK’s expansive welfare state.
36 The Rise of the UK Welfare State
In 1942, as war raged across Europe and the Pacific, the groundwork for a radical new approach to social welfare in the United Kingdom was already being laid. William Beveridge, career civil servant and erstwhile director of the London School of Economics, published Social Insurance and Allied Services, his review of existing systems of social protection undertaken at the behest of the UK’s wartime coalition government. Bland title aside, this was a transformative work that laid out an ambitious set of new social programs to tackle the “five giants” plaguing British society- want, ignorance, disease, squalor and idleness. The post-war Labour government of Clement Attlee moved to implement Beveridge’s proposals, creating unemployment insurance, a national pension scheme, huge public housing projects, an expansion of public education and the iconic National Health Service (NHS). At the heart of the welfare state project was the notion of social citizenship. By virtue of being citizens of the United Kingdom, individuals and families could expect to receive healthcare, education, housing and the benefits of an extensive social safety net. So far, I have discussed the nationalism-social policy nexus as a tool useful to sub-state political actors pursuing a nationalist agenda. In fact, the nexus is equally useful to the central state— perhaps even more so, given its ability to mobilize greater resources behind a nation-building project. The creation of an extensive welfare state helped to build loyalty to the United Kingdom. As Béland & Lecours (2008) note, during the post‐war era, “the modern welfare state and the idea of social citizenship associated with it became a central aspect of the British national identity” (p. 94). In this sense, the welfare state came to replace the British empire, disintegrating in the wake of the Second World War, “as a perceived source of economic progress and as a powerful symbol of British identity” (Beland & Lecours, 2008, p. 107). The integrationist role of the welfare state was also felt in its greater accommodation of the Scottish working class into the UK’s political system and by reconciling it to capitalism (Keating, 2009; Marshall, 1992). On its face, the welfare state would appear to be a countervailing force against Scottish nationalism, as it depended on a strong central state and would therefore logically build attachment to that state. As Keating (2005) notes, “it is widely agreed that the rise of the welfare state in the twentieth century posed a challenge to the informal arrangements by which Scottish (and indeed English) domestic policy had been made” (p. 424). However, administrative devolution again meant that Scotland retained some space to adapt welfare state programs to its own particular context even in the context of more centralized and
37 formalized policy making. The NHS was implemented locally, as were housing programs and public education schemes. Social citizenship through welfare state programs was established at the national UK level through Westminster legislation, but acquired a distinctly Scottish flavour over time. The rise of the welfare state coincided with a period of remarkable political stability in Scotland. Electoral politics following the Second World War operated as a functional duopoly between the Labour Party and the Conservative and Unionist Party, with Labour enjoying support from the urban working class and Roman Catholics, and the Conservatives drawing their votes from the middle class and working class individuals with strong protestant identification (McTavish, 2016, p. 59). The extent of this two-party domination is demonstrated by the election results of 1955, where the Labour Party and Conservatives together garnered 98.6 per cent of the Scottish vote (Cameron, 2016, p. 13). Support for both Labour and the Conservatives went into decline after the 1970s, although the drop in Labour support was somewhat obscured by their electoral success in Scotland during the Thatcher years (McTavish, 2016). Scottish opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s economic reforms found its clearest expression in votes for the Labour Party, which allowed the party to dominate national elections in Scotland through the 1980s and 1990s. However, this voting behaviour obscured a slow erosion in support for the Labour Party itself. Part of this decline can be explained by the rise of modern political nationalism in Scotland, beginning in the 1960s.
The Thatcher Era and Devolution
The rise of Scottish nationalism as a political force is linked to three factors: the electoral success of the Scottish National Party after 1970, the importance of Scotland to the Labour Party’s electoral success and the backlash against Thatcherism in the 1980s. Behind these dynamics was a creeping decline in Scottish support for Union. This decline has been attributed to welfare state retrenchment, European integration and a growing belief that Westminster increasingly governed without representation from Scotland and in a way hostile to Scottish interests. However, and as Keating (2009) observes, each of these explanations are insufficient on their own. The reality is that dissatisfaction with Union is a complex phenomenon, in which multiple causes have interacted over time. Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, the Scottish National Party (SNP) embodied the clearest political expression of rising nationalism in Scotland. Founded in 1934 following a political split between advocates for “home rule” within the Liberal Party, the
38 SNP was composed of the hardline faction that sought outright independence as opposed to some greater accommodation within Union. For most of its early history, the SNP was considered a “sideshow” to two-party dominance in Scotland until its membership began to expand in the 1960s (McTavish, 2016, p. 61). By 1967, it had claimed its first seat in the Westminster Parliament (thanks to a shock by-election victory in the now-reorganized Lanarkshire riding of Hamilton) and by 1974 the SNP enjoyed the support of 30.4 per cent of Scottish voters (McGarvey & Cairney, 2008). The Westminster fortunes of the SNP waxed and waned in the following years, but they generally benefitted from the slow decline in support for the Conservatives and Labour parties. Nationalist sentiment in Scotland has varied since Union, but the last forty years has seen a marked – and sustained – increase in Scottish desire for self-government. Belief in a distinct Scottish identity has always persisted within the United Kingdom, but how has this identity latterly translated into a push for greater independence? Sorens (2016), writing on the persistence of secessionist movements generally, observes:
only when identity is coupled with interest does a popular desire for independence come about. If a people can be better off economically, culturally, and politically as the core of an autonomous political jurisdiction, then secessionism emerges (p. 6).
Support for Union depended first on the economic benefits delivered by Empire, and then later the economic solidarity embodied by the welfare state. But throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, there was a growing sense that membership in Union was no longer paying dividends and that “the British state ruled Scotland in an increasingly illegitimate way” (Law & Mooney, 2012, p. 168). Between 1979 and 1997, the UK was governed by a succession of Tory governments. It was widely felt that these governments were imposing “unpopular neo- liberal policies on Scotland,” as the party enjoyed little electoral support among Scottish voters (Law & Mooney, 2012, p.168). Under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, the central UK state attempted to centralize its control over social and economic policy, while simultaneously introducing deep cuts to social programs. This created a backlash in Scotland, and led to support for greater autonomy. According to Devine (2012), “fundamental hostility” to Union was created by:
[T]he profound economic dislocation of the 1980s, the ‘democratic deficit’ caused by the cleavage between Scottish and English voting patterns, and perhaps above all, by growing opposition to the social policies of a succession of Conservative governments (p. 621).
39
There was thus wide agreement among Scots that at least some devolution of powers to a new Scottish assembly was needed in order to protect Scottish institutions and organizations from further depredations (Greer, 2007; McEwan, 2002).While the deep unpopularity of the Thatcher and Major governments was the proximate cause of Scottish dissatisfaction with Westminster throughout the late 20th century, it is an insufficient explanation for the upsurge in national feeling that followed. As we have seen, the preservation of Scottish institutions alongside an independent administrative and political sphere allowed for the structures of the UK - most notably the policies and programs that constituted the welfare state - to become attached to Scotland and to Scottish identity. This is an example of what Keating (2009) refers to as “re-territorialization,” where regions and sub- state nations assert their identity as the traditional nation state recedes. The emergence of supranational levels of political organization - such as the European Union - and the global mobility of capital has tended to erode the traditional prominence of nation states, which has allowed new forms of “political mobilization around territorial and cultural identities” to emerge (Keating, 2009, p. 48). The legacy of administrative devolution, the Scottish Office and the Secretary of State for Scotland helped to preserve the notion of a distinct political and cultural space within Scotland, where policy and politics had to some extent become localized and expressed territorially. Scottish commitment to the welfare state, in short, became attached to Scotland itself. Under pressure from the central state, the British welfare apparatus ceased to be a source of a social citizenship across the UK, and social solidarity became unhinged from the state and instead linked to Scottish identity (Keating, 2009, p. 31) This re-territorialization helps to explain Scotland’s antipathy towards the Thatcher Government, as its policies were viewed as a direct threat to Scotland’s distinct institutions and administrative apparatus (Beland & Lecours, 2008, p. 103). It was not so much that welfare state retrenchment on its own was seen by Scottish citizens as hostile, but that attempts to control and roll back these programs were perceived as an assault on the structure and values of the Scottish polity itself. Conceptualized this way, the conflicts of the 1980s and 90s helps to explain how social policy became connected to nationalism and the independence project. This growing antipathy is demonstrated by two very different referendums on the devolution of power to Scotland. On March 1, 1979, with Margaret Thatcher’s election as Prime Minister still two months away, Scotland held a referendum on whether authority for some local matters should be devolved to a new Scottish assembly. Although a small majority
40 of those who cast ballots were in favour of the proposal, the referendum failed to meet the necessary voter turnout requirements. Throughout the Thatcher years, Scotland was immensely important to the Labour Party as it provided a consistent and substantial number of parliamentary seats. To maintain its hold on politically important Scotland in the face of rising SNP support, Labour was compelled to take up the cause of greater Scottish autonomy. When the Labour government of Tony Blair swept to power in 1997, the promises made to nationalists came due. A new referendum was called, and Scottish voters again went to the polls on the question of whether a new Scottish Parliament with devolved powers should be created. This time, the desire for greater autonomy was clear. A large majority voted in favour of establishing a Scottish parliament, with 60 per cent of the population casting a ballot. This apparent success for Scottish nationalists would not have been possible without the hostility to the UK created during Tory rule. Indeed, the difference between 1979 and 1997 was “that the rejection of neo-liberalism has a territorial expression in Scotland and was linked to rising nationalist sentiment and the campaign for self-government, to which it probably gave the extra momentum that previous home rule campaigns had lacked” (Keating, 2009, p. 54). Following this result, the Westminster Parliament passed the Scotland Act on November 17, 1998, creating the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive. The Act granted these new governing bodies wide-ranging powers over domestic policy, including higher education (Arnott & Ozga, 2010; Court, 2004). After nearly three centuries, Scotland had regained its parliament. During the 2014 referendum campaign, faced again with rising nationalist sentiment, Unionist politicians made “the Vow,” which promised even more devolved powers for Scotland. The results of the Vow will be discussed in chapter 10, but for now it is enough to say that the UK’s typical response to Scottish dissatisfaction is to make constitutional concessions and grant more political and policy autonomy. The apparently ad hoc and reactive nature of constitutional change in the UK has been described by one commentator as the “Britney Spears Model of Constitutional Reform” (Qvortrup, 2016, p. 229). Referring to Spears’ 1998 hit, “Oops, I did it again,” Qvortrup observes how the major periods of devolutionary legislation - the 1970s, the 1997 referendum, and “The Vow” — appear in retrospect to be somewhat haphazard and poorly thought through. For obvious reasons, the strategy of making concessions to appease Scottish nationalism cannot continue forever as there will eventually be no more concessions to make. Interestingly, the SNP initially took a dim view of a devolved Scottish parliament. As full independence was the party’s ultimate goal, a sub-state assembly was initially seen as an
41 unsatisfactory compromise. However, under the leadership of Alex Salmond in the late 1990s, the SNP made a strategic shift to compete for seats within the Scottish Parliament (McTavish, 2016, p. 68). This followed a gradual shift in the party’s ideology towards a more social democratic orientation throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Beland & Lecours, 2008, p. 148). As demonstrated in the previous chapter, this shift leftwards is not surprising given the connection between an activist social policy agenda and the SNP’s nationalist commitment. The SNP now has a rather paradoxical approach to the Scottish Parliament, “as the argument for independence necessarily involves adopting an ambiguous position towards [it] as an institution, praising its achievements, yet underlining its limitations” (Beland & Lecours, 2008, p. 129). But there is no question that even the SNP’s initially lukewarm embrace of the Scottish Parliament has paid extraordinary political dividends. It won 35 seats in the first Scottish parliamentary election, and formed the official opposition. In 2007, the SNP formed a minority government, and in 2011 succeeded in winning a majority mandate. This is no mean feat, as the mixed-member proportional system used to elect the Scottish Parliament was specifically designed to prevent majority governments (Law & Mooney, 2012). The SNP’s explicit goal remains the creation of an “independent, sovereign Scottish state” (McGarvey & Cairney, 2008, p. 49) that is a “full and equal member state of the European Union” (Keating, 2009, p. 59). EU membership is seen as crucial to the economic viability of an independent Scotland, but membership would also entail some limitations on Scottish sovereignty (as discussed in chapter six, the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) would impose a variety of requirements on the Scottish higher education system, with the goal of harmonizing tertiary education across the EU). They are the only political party that advocates for full independence, while the Scottish Labour Party (the SNP’s biggest political rival) prefers to argue for more devolved powers within the United Kingdom. This split illustrates the extent to which the political landscape has shifted in Scotland. In the 1979 referendum, voters in favour of a devolved assembly tended to list the status quo – that is, an unchanged relationship with the UK – as their second choice. In the 1997 referendum, those in favour of devolution indicated that outright independence was their second choice (Keating, 2009, p. 71). The status quo is no longer the preferred default, which means that the political choice for Scotland is more autonomy within the Union, or outright independence. This rejection of the current relationship benefits the SNP and poses a political problem for traditional unionist parties. Armed with a majority government, the SNP moved swiftly in pursuit of its
42 independence goal. On October 15, 2012, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and UK Prime Minister David Cameron signed the Edinburgh Agreement, outlining the terms for a referendum on Scottish independence. The vote was held on September 18, 2014 and the “Yes” or pro-independence side lost, with 44.7 per cent of the vote compared to 55.3 per cent on the pro-Union side. But in terms of the size and reach of the SNP, the 2014 referendum now appears to be a rather spectacular success masquerading as a defeat. In 2002, SNP membership stood at 16,000. Membership grew steadily in the period prior to the referendum, but spiked significantly following the vote. In January 2015, it stood at 93,000 and reached 100,000 members in advance of the 2015 UK general election (McTavish, 2016, p. 70). In terms of membership, this count makes the SNP the dominant political party in Scotland. The referendum campaign also seems to have dramatically improved the SNP’s performance in elections for the Westminster Parliament. In 2010, the party won six seats in the House of Commons. In 2015, eight months after the referendum defeat, the SNP won 56 out of 59 Scottish seats. This number fell to 35 in 2017 and then rose again to 48 in 2019, but the contrast with pre-referendum results is stunning. However, a rise in support for the SNP does not automatically translate into support for independence. As McTavish (2016) notes, “it is fairly clear from both electoral studies and analyses of Scottish social attitudes surveys that the rise in SNP support since it formed a minority Scottish Government in 2007 has not been based on national identity or a rise in nationalist sentiment” (p. 83). Support for outright independence has largely remained between 42 and 47 per cent since the referendum, with a brief jump to 53 per cent following the Brexit referendum vote (ScotCen, 2019). Instead, voters appear to be responding positively to the SNP’s perceived record in government, which is seen as particularly competent compared to the other parties. Again, we can see here the legacy of the preservation of Scotland’s autonomy under Union and the re-territorialization of Scottish politics— while voters may not endorse the independence project, they rally around a party which is seen to be the most effective in advancing Scotland’s unique interests and defending its institutions from interference by the UK state. By further positioning the SNP as the expression of Scottish political identity, the party has also benefitted in the rise of the number of citizens for whom this identity is salient. According to ScotCen Social Research (2018) and their excellent “What Scotland Thinks” website, in response to the question, “where on this scale would you place your identity?” 24 per cent of respondents identified as “Scottish Not British” in June of 2018. Additionally, 34 per cent of respondents described their identity as “more Scottish than British,” up from 24 per cent in March of 2014 and 28 per cent in May
43 of 2012. The proportion of people who described themselves as “equally British and Scottish” was at 23 per cent, down from 29 per cent in 2014 and 28 per cent in May of 2012. Respondents indicating that they were “More British than Scottish” was at nine per cent in 2018, while those who identified as “British not Scottish” was at five per cent. With over two-thirds of respondents identifying as more - or exclusively - Scottish, it seems clear that Scottish identity is highly salient for people living in Scotland, much more so than a “British” identity. This admittedly whirlwind tour of Scotland’s political history demonstrates how the survival and expansion of Scottish institutions, coupled with the preservation of limited autonomy in the local implementation of policy and programs initiated by the UK state, has created a distinct and territorialized Scottish polity. Where Scots once saw economic benefits and social solidarity flowing from the UK central state, the rise in nationalist sentiment is linked to a growing sense that Union - once seen as an enabler of Scottish identity - is now hostile to Scotland’s institutions and policy preferences. For many, the solution to this problem is greater local autonomy as exemplified through the (re)creation of the Scottish Parliament. For others, Scotland would be better off without Union and as an independent nation. In any case, the acquisition of greater autonomy through the Scottish Parliament has allowed Scotland an increased measure of freedom to pursue its own prerogatives. Writing in 2008, Beland & Lecours note that, “the prospect for both social policy and constitutional divergence would be the greatest in the case of an SNP Scottish Executive facing a Conservative government in Westminster, a scenario which, if it were to happen, could very well be a defining period for the Union and the British welfare state” (p. 142). Following the UK general election in 2010, this is precisely what occurred. In fact, the actual events go well beyond the scenario imagined by the authors- not only did a SNP government in Edinburgh face a Conservative government in Scotland, but the SNP carried a majority in the Scottish Parliament, significantly increasing their ability to stand in opposition to Westminster. As we shall see shortly in the example of higher education policy, this has caused the long process of convergence between Scotland and England through union, in some key areas, to reverse itself and significant policy divergence is now underway.
44 5. A Distinct Scottish Tradition of Higher Education?
As the nationalism-social policy nexus suggests, for Scotland’s higher education sector to be useful to those arguing for independence, it must be seen as distinctly “Scottish” and this distinctiveness must be linked in a meaningful way to notions of national identity. More importantly, this distinctiveness must be seen to be under threat from the larger state. As we have seen, the idea of a Scottish nation is rooted in Scotland’s distinct institutions - the church, the legal system, and its unique educational arrangements, including the Ancient Universities. Tracing back to the medieval period, and certainly by the time of the Protestant Reformation - nearly 150 years before the Act of Union - there was a persistent view that Scotland possessed an advanced and distinctive educational system, superior to arrangements in England. After 1707, the Scottish educational system was moreover viewed as “a guarantee of Scotland’s social and cultural autonomy within the Union” (Anderson, 1983, p. 1). While a notion of cultural or institutional distinctiveness is present in many sub-state nations with aspirations to independence, Scotland’s educational system is remarkable in terms of the long historical pedigree of its educational tradition, the stability of the definition of its characteristics over time, and its continued persuasiveness in terms of appeals to the tradition in the modern context. As Anderson (1983) observes:
The belief that Scottish education was peculiarly ‘democratic’, and that it helped to sustain certain correspondingly democratic features of Scottish life, formed a powerful historical myth, using that word to indicate not something false, but an idealization and a distillation of a complex reality, a belief which influences history by interacting with other forces and pressures, ruling out some developments as inconsistent with the national tradition, and shaping the form in which the institutions inherited from the past are allowed to change (p. 1).
It is telling that individuals on both sides of the independence debate - both historically and during the 2014 Independence Referendum campaign - tend to agree about the existence of a distinct Scottish tradition in both the secondary and postsecondary systems. Where they disagree is about the best ways to protect this distinctiveness, and what sorts of policy outcomes are implied by the values that underpin the educational system. The importance of the educational system to Scottish nationhood has also been apparent to observers working outside of Scotland and the United Kingdom. Eminent American sociologist Seymour Lipset and co-author Reinhard Bendix (1964) remarked on the important cultural role played by education in Scotland, and how this drove higher rates of educational attainment that
45 elsewhere in the UK or Europe. The existence and characteristics of a Scottish tradition is thus unusually uncontroversial, especially given the contested nature of Scotland nationalism. Faced with the apparent durability of the Scottish tradition, what, exactly, are its dimensions and characteristics? Neave (1976) identifies five fundamental differences between the educational systems of Scotland and England:
1. The greater antiquity of the Scottish national education system;
2. The focus on 'academic education' in Scotland - particularly the emphasis on philosophy in the secondary and university curriculum;
3. The greater 'openness' of Scotland’s secondary schools, and lower degree of selectivity between different school types;
4. Scotland’s preference for a contest mode of social mobility in contrast to the predominant sponsored mode in English education; and
5. Scotland’s more 'democratic nature' at the university level (pp. 130-132).
This typology, while based on the entire Scottish educational system from the rural parochial schools to urban secondary schools to the universities, is useful for conceptualizing the specific characteristics of Scotland’s distinct tradition of higher education. Neave’s first point - that Scotland had a truly national system of education much earlier than England - speaks to the Scottish universities’ closer relationship to the state and willingness to take on nation-building roles. His second and fifth characteristics highlight the unique structure and focus of the Scottish university degree, and the supposed effect this structure had on the intellectual development of Scotland. Neave’s fourth element - the preference for contest over sponsored mobility in selecting members for the social, economic and political elites - identifies an egalitarian strain in Scotland’s universities, an idea that has remained powerful in contemporary policy debates. To Neave’s list can be added an additional characteristic, one that is present in all other aspects of the distinct Scottish tradition - the tendency to define distinctiveness almost exclusively in relation to the educational institutions of England. This has been true since the founding of the first university in Scotland, the University of St. Andrews, in 1413. For example, Scottish commentators on education - whether in the 19th century or today - do not argue that Scotland’s universities are more egalitarian than, say, those in France (a nation where Scotland has longstanding intellectual ties), or those in Northern Ireland, where Scotland has strong historical and cultural connections. The comparison point is always
46 England. The notion of Scottish distinctiveness in higher education therefore exists in a kind of feedback loop - Scottish nationalists emphasize the distinct features of Scotland’s universities because they offer a powerful point of contrast with England, which over time has made the differences more salient and significant for Scottish citizens. Restated from Neave, then, Scotland’s distinct tradition of higher education thus has four elements relevant to the interplay of national identity, politics, and public policy within the Independence debate:
1. A historically closer connection between the Scottish universities, their local communities and nation; 2. The unique structure and focus of the Scottish university curriculum, and its perceived role in creating the Scottish “democratic intellect;” 3. The egalitarian nature of the Scottish universities, especially in terms of admissions and the composition of the student body; and 4. The evolution of the Scottish universities in overt opposition to English institutions (specifically Oxford and Cambridge)
Each of these elements will be discussed in turn. It is important to note that the notion of a distinct tradition of Scottish higher education up to the mid-20th century developed almost exclusively alongside the so-called Ancient Universities - St. Andrew’s, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. This is due to the simple fact that no new universities were created in Scotland until the 1960s (excluding the merger of Marischal and King’s Colleges to form Aberdeen in 1860, and the establishment of what would eventually become the University of Dundee as a constituent college of St. Andrews in 1881) and that the further education colleges sector did not exist prior to 1958 (Neave, 1976). Before examining the elements of the distinct Scottish tradition of higher education, it is thus necessary to explore the history of the institutions in which this tradition was formed.
The Origins of Scotland’s Higher Education System
Higher education in Scotland began with the founding of St. Andrews University by Papal Bull in 1413. It was the third university to be founded in the British Isles, after Oxford (1096) and Cambridge (1209). The University of Glasgow and King’s College in Aberdeen followed in 1451 and 1495 respectively. These institutions, like those elsewhere in Europe
47 and in England, were founded on religious lines with the goals of both advancing ecclesiastical scholarship and training clergy. A fourth institution, the University of Edinburgh, was created in 1583. In 1593, Marischal College was founded in Aberdeen, which, like Edinburgh, was a so-called civic university, created through the initiative of the city fathers without the explicit blessing of the Pope (which anyway would have been impossible, as the Scottish Reformation had entrenched John Knox’s brand of Protestantism - Presbyterianism - as Scotland’s state religion). Although Marischal ultimately merged with King’s College to form the University of Aberdeen in 1860, it was a long-running point of Scottish pride in the 18th and 19th centuries that Aberdeen alone had the same number of universities as all of England. Indeed, up until the mid-19th century, Scotland led England in number of universities despite possessing a much smaller population. From the outset, Scottish universities have been seen as a point of distinction with the other nations in the UK. Together, St. Andrew’s, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh are known as the “Ancient Universities” and continue to hold an important place in Scotland’s higher education system. Scottish pride in the Ancients reflects the impressive achievements of these institutions in the early modern period. By the beginning of the 18th century, Scotland already enjoyed a rather outsized academic reputation, with Scottish scholars achieving prominence in many of the great medieval universities. Between its foundation and the Reformation, the University of Paris had at least 17 Scottish rectors (Devine, 2012, p. 71). In his seminal study of medieval European universities, Rashdall (1895) suggests that there were two dominant archetypes for universities in the middle ages – the University of Bologna, “a university of students” with strong student representation in the affairs of the institution, or the University of Paris, the “university of masters” organized around the priorities of established scholars (pp. 16-17). For Rashdall, the Scottish universities were more akin to the Bologna model, while Oxford and Cambridge cleaved to the Paris template (p. 18). Indeed, this focus on students is reflected in many of the historical practices of the Scottish ancients that persist in the modern context, such as the student election of the university rector. As they rose to prominence, the Ancient Universities were instrumental in creating a strong intellectual culture within Scotland itself. In the years following Union, increased wealth and intellectual influence from Continental Europe led to an explosion of scholarship now known as the Scottish Enlightenment. Under the guidance of luminaries like Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Dugald Stewart, teaching in the Ancient universities “became the prime mechanism for disseminating the ideals of the enlightenment to the new generation of ministers, schoolmasters, doctors, and lawyers” (Devine, 2012, p. 77). Through the
48 universities, it is argued, the principles of reason and skeptical inquiry entrenched themselves in Scotland’s public life. The Enlightenment also saw Scotland’s universities take on a prominent role in Europe’s intellectual culture, a surprising accomplishment given Scotland’s small size and relative poverty. By the end of the 18th Century, the University of Edinburgh’s medical school was thought to be the best in the world, and the other universities were busily producing seminal works of history, political science, philosophy and science (Devine, 2012). This period of success looms large in the modern Scottish imagination, and is a strong historical argument for the exceptional nature of Scottish higher education. As the Ancient Universities grew and prospered, so did the cultural belief that Scotland’s higher education system was unique and valuable. The success of the Ancients rested on Scotland’s impressive and rather unique accomplishments in primary and secondary schooling. The religious tenets of Scottish Presbyterianism – and its forbearer, Calvinism – required that all of the faithful, regardless of class or wealth, should be able to read the Holy Scriptures. This view was laid out in the First Book of Discipline, one of the foundational documents of the protestant Church of Scotland, drafted by a group of religious reformers that included John Knox. The First Book of Discipline advocated a truly national school system, with a special emphasis on supporting literacy and religious education for the poor (Anderson, 1983, p. 3). In service of this goal, Scotland passed the Act for Setting Schools in 1696. This required every parish in Scotland to furnish a school and a teacher for its children, funded by the local landowners (Devine, 2012; Herman, 2001). These parochial schools, as they became known, formed the backbone of the Scottish educational system, and were important feeder institutions for the universities. The universities, in turn, supported the parochial schools by ensuring an ample supply of teachers. While the quality of the parochial schools varied from parish to parish, there is compelling evidence to indicate that they overall provided an effective education to a broad segment of Scottish society. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Scotland had one of the highest literacy rates in the world, particularly among the poor (Herman, 2001). According to popular accounts, the schools also facilitated an intermingling of social classes on relatively equitable terms. A certain S.M. Murray, writing in The English Review in 1912, described the parochial tradition as a system:
which encouraged the son of the laird, of the parish “minister,” of the doctor, to sit on the same bench, to receive the same course of instruction, given the necessary brains, to undergo the same stern, even Draconian, discipline as the son of the fisherman or ploughman” (p. 644).
49 Or consider this remark, made by Lyon Playfair, a professor of chemistry at Edinburgh, a member of the Prince Albert’s circle of advisers, and later Member of Parliament:
I have just left a Scotch town in which I was at a parochial school, and many a friendly grip of the hand did I get from working men and tradesmen who were school fellows with me. Neither of us had lost our respect for the other in our different careers in life, and it was a very hearty thing to feel that your old schoolfellows had an honest word of congratulation, if you happened to be in a more conspicuous position than themselves (quoted in Anderson, 1983, p. 87)
Clearly, Playfair, a luminous figure in Scottish science, still had very warm feelings for his parochial education. In this quotation, it is not difficult to see how the parochial schools - and the upward mobility into higher education they afforded to many rural and poor students - came to be seen as the foundation of the perceived greater equality of Scottish society, particularly when contrasted against the more rigid class-based educational system in England. The Act for Setting Schools is also notable as an early example of the use of national legislation to provide financial support to the education system, another early difference between Scotland and England and the origin of Neave’s assertion that Scotland’s national system therefore has greater antiquity than its English counterpart (1976, p. 129) This, combined with the willingness of Scottish universities to accept pupils from all backgrounds, gave rise to one of Scotland’s enduring cultural myths: the lad o’pairts. Literally “a boy of parts,” this figure represents a young man from meagre beginnings who, through intelligence, education, and hard work, is able to raise himself to wealth and importance. Reviewing this myth, Forrester (1992) suggests that while it contains a certain amount of idealism and a “search for a specifically Scottish exemplification of vertical social mobility through education” (p. 160), the ideal of the lad o’pairts contains a significant amount of historical truth. Bell (2000) observes that the parish schools and accessible universities meant that:
for boys living in favoured parts of the country (the north-east particularly) a real ladder of opportunity existed and many who in other countries, not the least England, would have never contemplated entering higher education, were able to make their way into a far from expensive academic world (p. 65).
As is often the case, the myth of the lad o’pairts is much more compelling than the historical reality. During 19th century, the parochial schools, primarily rural, were increasingly overshadowed by the more formal secondary schools that developed in larger
50 urban centres. Thought to be more academically rigorous, and typically catering to wealthier students, they mirrored the grammar schools of England in both their demographics and their relatively greater success in preparing students for entry to university (Anderson, 1983). The local funding structure of the parochial schools also meant that wealthier parishes had better funded institutions, further reinforcing class divisions. But there is at least some truth to the idea of the lad o’pairts and the notion that Scotland was more of meritocracy than its neighbour to the south, and this has given rise to a surprisingly durable sense of a more democratic and equitable educational tradition. Reviewing all aspects of the Scottish education system in the 19th century, Anderson (1983) identifies four elements of this historic myth:
1. The ideal of universality - a school system that would put religious education and literacy within reach of the whole population. 2. The role of the school in affording opportunities to the lad o’pairts - poverty should be no barrier to talent, and individuals from whatever background should be able to climb the educational ladder. 3. The school was a place where all social classes rubbed shoulders. 4. The three parts of the educational system - parish schools in the countryside, burgh schools in the towns, and the universities - should be seen as a national system, with no barriers between them, and since this system served the community as a whole it should be established by law, supported from public funds, and supervised by the authorities of the church and state (pp. 1-2).
Scotland - in terms of the universality, national structure, and public support - was thus slightly ahead of other European nations, and certainly ahead of England, in creating what we would now recognize as a modern public education system. As Anderson (1983) states, “national education systems, directed by the state, are one of the characteristic creations of the nineteenth century, linked in the western world with the process of industrialization, the rise of political democracy, and the development of ‘mass society’” (p. 1). Many of the characteristic features of Scotland’s educational system thus prefigured the great European nation-building education projects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
51 The Universities, Community, and Nation
Almost from their creation, Scottish universities were more attuned to earthly affairs than their peers in England. Unlike almost all universities of the time, the University of Edinburgh was created through royal encouragement, and a committee of the town council made the financial – and by extension, curricular – decisions for the institution (Bell, 2000). It was a “civic university” concerned far more with the secular than the divine (Bell, 2000, p. 166). The other Scottish Ancients, despite their religious origin, became similarly focused on the needs of Scottish society. Taken as a whole, the Ancients were far more engaged in the political and economic life of Scotland than Oxford and Cambridge were in England. Keating (2005) notes that Scottish universities possessed a “civic tradition in which universities were seen as part of the local community, in contrast with the specialist and more elitist model of England” (p. 424). Sloan (1971) further notes that:
By the middle of the 18th Century, the Scottish universities were distinguished among the institutions of higher education in Europe by their strong commitment to utilitarian social service and their concern for educational process and reform (p. 23).
Similarly, George Fallis (2007) comments that, “Scottish universities were admired for their contributions to Scotland's robust industrialization and 'national' development” (p. 33). Scottish universities “were accommodating themselves to industrialization and democracy; Oxford was not" (Fallis, 2007, p. 21). By the end of the 18th century, it was clear that the orientation of the Scottish Ancients towards the needs and interests of society set them apart from their comparators in England, and quite possibly from universities anywhere else in the world at the time. For example, their early embrace of natural philosophy (what we now understand as science) in the curriculum, allowed the Scottish medical schools, particularly at Edinburgh, to become the most prominent in the world. (Fallis, 2007, pp. 32- 33; Devine, 2012). As Devine (2012) notes, as early as the 18th century, Edinburgh emerged as a “centre for medical education without equal in Europe” (pp. 71-72). This civic and community focus can be partially explained by the physical proximity of the universities to their host communities. Scottish universities were located in urban areas, rather on the far boundaries of towns, and “were regarded as an emanation of the community rather than an imposition from outside” (Neave, 1976, p. 132). This contrasted sharply with the medieval English institutions, which were set apart from their host communities, and felt by many to be an alien presence in the business of the town. The sense
52 of imposition felt in Oxford and Cambridge was very real and longstanding - the St. Scholastica Day Riot of February 10, 1355 was an explosion of open warfare between students and the Oxford citizenry, which left perhaps 63 scholars and 30 townspeople dead.2 By contrast, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen had much more peaceable, and notably riot- free, relations with the students and faculty studying in their midst, and the universities contributed much to the cultural and economic lives of the communities in which they were embedded. This close relationship extended to the work of individual faculty members. Two successive chairs of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow – Robert Dick and John Anderson – taught courses on astronomy and physics directly to the townspeople in the mid- 18th century (Devine, 2012). Anderson in particular emphasized “useful learning, which would have a direct benefit on commerce and industry” (Devine, 2012, p. 79). The proximity of the universities to the wider community led to a greater number of citizens, who were not otherwise full-time students, enrolling in individual courses according to their interests (Neave, 1976). This was facilitated by the practice of allowing students to pay per course, and these payments were made directly to individual professors. While professors received a small annual salary, the bulk of their income was made up of pay-per-course fees. The university faculty therefore had a vested interest in maintaining and preserving their relationship to the wider community. Out of this close relationship with the community grew a strong connection with the Scottish nation. While, as we have seen, Scottish nationhood is a fluid and contested concept, the Ancient Universities came to view themselves as serving the national interests of the Scottish polity, both in terms of the intellectual development of its people and the success of its economy. Indeed, most of the Ancients had been created at the urging of Scottish monarchs at the time when the phrase l’etat c’est moi was an actual organizing principle for political life, not a historical archaism. Motivated by prestige and the desire to advance the social and economic development of the nation, these universities were from inception institutions focused on public purposes. For the younger Ancients - Marischal and Edinburgh - the close relationship to government was even more apparent, as the town council had authority over curriculum and finances. Thus, by virtue of their origins and their locations, the Ancient universities had habituated themselves to “being public and national
2 The violence was eventually resolved in favour of the students at the intercession of King Edward III. As punishment, the Mayor and Bailiffs of Oxford were forced to march bareheaded through town to Mass, where they swore an oath affirming the university’s rights and paid a fine of 63 pence - one shilling for each scholar killed. The practice continued until 1825, when the sitting mayor refused to participate.
53 institutions which the state had every right to govern and reform” (Paterson, 2003, p. 69). This willingness to accept at least some state control explains the intensity of the public debate over the universities that began in the early 19th century and persisted for decades. The Scottish authorities, either through local government or through the Scotland Office, had recognized authority to set entrance requirements, curriculum, and even a small proportion of the universities’ budget. In Scotland, and again very different from arrangements in England, state support for the universities had been established in the Act of Union, and in the 1830s amounted to £5,000-£6,000 (or over £400,000 in 2017 currency) in direct funding, construction and maintenance of some university buildings, and the endowment of most, if not all, of the professorial chairs (Anderson, 1983, p. 36).3 While Oxbridge dons would have blanched at this relationship, for the people of Scotland these “national” universities were a point of pride.
Structure of the Degree and the “Democratic Intellect”
Scotland’s universities, at least in the 18th and early 19th century, offered a program of study distinct from the curriculum found in England. Whereas Oxford emphasized Classics and Cambridge focused on Mathematics as the foundations of a university degree, the Ancients offered a broad and comprehensive course rooted in “logic, philosophy, and disputation” (Keating, 2005, p. 424). There was considerably less emphasis on specialization in the Scottish curriculum, and students were allowed to pursue a broad education deep into their university career. The Ancients also offered professional education – primarily in law and medicine – to an extent unknown in England (Court, 2004; Devine, 2012). As noted above, by the 19th century, the Scottish medical schools were regarded as particularly excellent, attracting students from all over the British Isles and overseas. This “wide and balanced” curriculum (Bell, 2000, p. 164) was viewed by many as educationally superior, and important to the role of Scottish universities as agents of economic and social development. Of course, not all observers were as sanguine about the quality of Scottish Education. Samuel Johnson, the great English lexicographer and critic, witheringly noted that, “in Scotland, every man has a mouthful of learning, but no man has a bellyful” (as quoted in Anderson, 1983: 32). The breadth of the Scottish curriculum and its resistance to specialization was
3 Currency data from the National Archives of the United Kingdom’s Currency Converter, 1270-2017. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result
54 thought by many, particularly in England, to produce an inferior intellect. Anderson (1983) argues that the defining characteristic of the Scottish university degree was its emphasis on philosophy (p. 31). In practice, this meant the Ancients had more in common with institutions in Germany and France, where philosophy was a core element of both university and secondary schooling. The Scottish degree was thought to be more “academic” and broader than the more utilitarian program of study present in England. Students typically entered Scottish universities at a younger age, and the first year of instruction was more like the last year of secondary schooling in many other jurisdictions. As such, the total course of study was longer, typically four years, as opposed to three in England. The broad-based university curriculum was supported by a common and similarly academic secondary curriculum in the parochial and burgh schools, which resisted the early streaming into technical programs that marked the English and Welsh systems (Davie, 1961, 1986; Neave, 1976; Neave and Cowper, 1979). The common curriculum was deeply rooted in the Church of Scotland’s control of the educational system; the commitment to merit, ability and achievement as criteria for elite membership; and the relative poverty of the country, which meant, in practice, that there were no resources available to create separate academic, vocational and technical educational tracks (Neave, 1976, p. 131). All Scottish students in the parochial and burgh schools thus received an education that would, at least in theory, prepare them to enter into a university for further study. At first pass, it may seem odd that for institutions ostensibly focused on public purposes and the economic needs of the community, philosophy should be given such a central place in the curriculum. However, philosophy at the time, which included both moral and natural philosophy, was seen as an important preparation for a professional career, whether that be direct entry into business or further study in law and medicine. Conversely, the emphasis on Classics in England was seen as preparation for a career in the Church or the more amorphous vocation of being a gentleman. There was a corresponding lack of encouragement for students to pursue further professional study. It has also been argued that the academic nature of the university curriculum in Scotland, and its basis in philosophy and argument, gave rise to a particularly Scottish way of thinking which in turn supported particular conceptions about public life. Historian and philosopher George Elder Davie provided the definitive account of this intellectual tradition, which he described as the “democratic intellect.” In his conception, rooted in the Presbyterian notion that the gospels were to be read by everyone, the idea that knowledge should be open to all of society was an important Scottish value. While only a small number of individuals
55 might have studied in a Scottish university,
the educated minister would bring to the benefit of his entire congregation the rational wisdom that he had gained from his studies, and his listeners’ high standards of literacy…would enable them not only to understand him but also, through engaging him in debate, hold him to account” (Paterson, 2015, p. 237).
For Davie, “philosophy provided the common language that enabled the dialogue to take place: in the Scottish Tradition, general education sought to install in its students a familiarity with abstract reasoning even at the expense of detailed knowledge” (Paterson, 2015, p. 238). Philosophy was not just a discipline for study. It was the key to a uniquely Scottish way of constructing knowledge and public life, what Davie (1961) described as “common sense” (p. 263). Widespread literacy and a common, broad-based and academic curriculum in the parochial schools and universities was thus a check on elite power. Building on this theme, Paterson (2009) places Scottish education firmly in the tradition of liberal universalism- indeed, as he argues, Scotland’s educational tradition played a central role in the creation of liberalism itself. Those working within Scotland’s schools and universities shared a particular commitment to “democratic education,” which
over and over again, has been interpreted as access to real education, real education has meant what happens in mainstream schools, colleges and universities, and the main kind of learning that happens there has been understood to be general, academic and therefore liberal (Patterson, 2003b: 3).
The distinctive Scottish course of study has persisted to the present day, at least in form if not in content. The degree programs offered by Scottish universities are recognizably modern, and cover the diversity of disciplines we would expect to see in a contemporary university. However, the degree remains four years in duration, as opposed to three in England and Wales. Due to the longer period of study, Scottish students are also allowed more time before choosing an academic specialization, echoing the broad academic education of the 19th century. These facts are considered somewhat unremarkable in contemporary policy discourse. While the structure of the degree is unquestionably a mark of Scottish distinctiveness, it does not possess anywhere near the salience of Scotland’s supposed more egalitarian model of higher education for modern observers. Still, the idea of the democratic intellect persists for many who work within, and comment on, Scottish universities. These accounts are almost always elegiac; the democratic intellect is thought to have been lost following the integration of the Scottish higher education system into the broader UK
56 context. Davie was the loudest lamenter of the decline of the democratic intellect in the face of increased specialization within the university curriculum. His second book on the topic, written 25 years after The Democratic Intellect was titled, ominously, The Crisis of the Democratic Intellect. But this contains a paradox: “To assert the enduring value of this Scottish tradition on the grounds that it is a tradition is to undermine its essence, which is precisely that education ought to transcend tradition” (Paterson, 2009, p. 273).
The Egalitarian Nature of Scottish Higher Education
The egalitarian focus and openness of university education is the last distinctive feature of the Scottish higher education tradition, and the one most relevant to the question of how higher education policy has played into modern debates on Scottish independence. The historical openness of the Scottish Universities was expressed in several ways. Unlike the English universities, Scottish institutions imposed no religious test on potential students (Shattock, 2007), while only members of the Church of England were allowed to attend Oxford and Cambridge. No such restriction existed in Scotland, owing perhaps to its complicated religious context – Presbyterians and Church of England members in the South, a strong Catholic presence in the Highlands, and any number of dissenting Protestant congregations in between. Scottish universities also admitted much younger students (Davie, 1961), and attracted students from a variety of urban and rural backgrounds, from both the rural parochial schools and the secondary schools located in large towns and cities (Keating, 2005). The Ancients were also open to the sons of the emerging Scottish middle-class , while Oxford and Cambridge remained the preserve of the English upper classes (Devine, 2012). Universal entrance examinations were introduced in England in 1854, a development that was resisted in Scotland for almost 40 years. This meant that admissions to the Scottish Ancients remained open throughout the 19th century, with “normal” students - who had matriculated from a secondary or parochial school into a formal program of study - studying alongside members of the community of all ages and backgrounds who were attending (and paying) for courses that attracted their interest. As the report of the 1926 Royal Commission observed, “The Universities of Scotland have always embraced Students of every variety and description” (Royal Commission of Inquiry, 1826, p. 9) The openness of the Ancients caused them to be more sensitive to the needs of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, reflected in attempts to control educational costs. Devine (2012) notes that the tuition fee in 18th century Scotland — five pounds – was
57 roughly one-tenth the fee charged at Oxford and Cambridge. The Ancients also consciously rejected the expensive residential college system of the English universities, and created a special holiday – Meal Monday – to allow self-catering students to return home and replenish their all-important oatmeal supply. This tradition persists to this day at many Scottish universities, although the emphasis on cereal grains has long since diminished. As Anderson (1983) notes, the customs of the Ancients, “recognized that many students would combine university attendance with work of some kind, or would need to earn their living in the summer, for the university session ran only from late October to Easter” (p. 4). At Marischal and King’s College (later Aberdeen), an annual bursary competition was held where exceptional students secured funding to underwrite their academic year. The competitions were “open to all and yielded lists of merit which were published in full; an individual’s success was seen as conferring honour on the local community which had reared a champion” (Northcroft, 2015, p. 174). Through these arrangements, and many more like them, the Scottish Ancients attempted to break down financial and class barriers to achieving a university degree. While this focus seems very much in line with the equity-building activities of modern public universities, they were distinct from the behaviour of Oxford and Cambridge in the 19th century. The openness and relative cheapness of the Scottish Ancients thus allowed them to function as public institutions “of opportunity and social mobility” (Fallis, 2007, p. 32). Scotland has always enjoyed a higher university participation rate than England (Keating, 2005; Ianelli, 2007), thanks in large part to the openness of its institutions. In 1868, the Argyll Commission estimated that one in 1000 Scots were in university, compared to one in 5,800 in England - an advantage of nearly six-to-one (Neave & Cowper, 1979, p. 9). The open and egalitarian nature of the Scottish universities did not mean they were free. While the tuition fee was much cheaper than Oxford and Cambridge, the Ancients and their professors very much depended on the income derived from students. Rather, the egalitarian nature of Scottish higher education was rooted in model of social mobility distinct from the model in England, what Turner (1960) would call contest mobility and sponsored mobility, respectively. Contest mobility is a system in which “elite status is the prize in an open contest and is taken by the aspirants' own efforts” while “under sponsored mobility elite recruits are chosen by the established elite or their agents, and elite status is given on the basis of some criterion of supposed merit and cannot be taken by any amount of effort or strategy” (Turner, 1960, p. 856). A defining myth of the Scottish tradition - embodied in the notion of the lad o’pairts and manifested in the parochial schools and openness of the
58 Scottish Ancients - is that anyone, no matter their background or circumstances, could achieve success and prominence through ability and hard work. This contrasted with the perceived purpose of Oxford and Cambridge as reproducing the existing class structure by carefully policing who was admitted to higher learning by, for example, the imposition of a religious test, an entrance examination or the adherence to an expensive residential model that was far beyond the means of poorer students. As Neave (1976) notes, in Scotland, “to advance, the individual must display ability, perseverance, enterprise and command of self. He is, in short, master of his own educational destiny rather than the object and plaything of a subtle patronage system” (p. 132). We should not take from this that Scottish universities were mass institutions as we would understand them today, with widespread participation across demographic lines and with large-scale social mobility. Both the Scottish Ancients and the Medieval English universities were fundamentally concerned with training elites who would fill the ranks of the clergy or join the burgeoning bureaucracy needed to support the British Empire. The argument is rather that Scotland provided a pathway into these elite ranks based more on merit, while the English system kept entry limited to the students who already belonged to the favoured caste. From this limited meritocracy, the notion that Scotland’s higher education system was more egalitarian and open was born, and it has proved a surprisingly durable notion. Alone among the other elements of the historical Scottish tradition, this egalitarian idea has been incorporated - and some would say distorted - in contemporary political debates, particularly around the question of Scotland’s independence.
The Controversies of the 19th Century
The history of any tradition is unavoidably “the history of debates about the tradition” (Paterson, 2009, p. 270). The 19th century was a particularly active period of debate about the structure and future of the Scottish universities. In the space of 63 years, Scotland saw three official (two of which were royal) commissions investigating the Ancients in 1826, 1858 and 1876, resulting in the passage of three reform bills: the 1853 Universities Act, the 1858 Universities Act and the 1889 Universities (Scotland) Act. The controversies that sprang up around these commissions and pieces of legislation tended to pit reformers - who thought the Scottish university curriculum and admission practices were archaic and a barrier to modernization - and those who believed passionately in the inherent value of open admissions and the broad academic curriculum with philosophy as its foundation. From the
59 outset, the debate was characterized along national lines, with those in favour of the status quo cast as the defenders of national identity, and the reformers as agents of anglicization. For nationalists, the distinctive Scottish university tradition was thought, “to be continually under threat from English cultural imperialism” (Bell, 2000, p. 164). Davie observed that, “Patriotic Scots were suspicious of innovations modelled on the practices of the auld enemy” (1961, p. 33), and notes how “education became the chief forum of resistance to Southern encroachment, and provided a rallying point for national principle” (1961, p. 4). The battle lines were drawn, and to the victor would go the soul of Scottish education. The 1826 royal commission recommended two reforms which threatened traditional notions of the Scottish universities. First, that the core of the curriculum should be classics, underpinned by a knowledge of Latin and Greek, which pushed philosophy out of its role of backbone to the Scottish degree. Second, the age of admittance to the universities should be increased and an entrance exam - again, designed to test competence in the classical languages - should be imposed. In essence, the commission recommended that two key features of the English universities should be imposed on the Scottish Ancients. The commission nevertheless took pains to place itself on the side of preserving the egalitarian nature of the Scottish Universities:
“(W)e should consider it to be one of the greatest misfortunes which could be inflicted upon Scotland, if, with the view to improvements of one description, any material bar should be opposed to the full participation of the benefits of University education by all, whose means and prospects can render such education of the smallest use to them” (Royal Commission of Inquiry, 1831, p. 9).
Despite its stated desire to not exclude the deserving poor, the perception was that the net effect of these reforms would be to make the less open to the full range of Scottish society, and less a space for meritocratic advancement. The reaction to the proposed reforms was vigorous, a testament to the value place on the distinctiveness of Scottish higher education and the degree to which that value had penetrated the professional, merchant and academic classes. Debate over the report of the 1826 commission lasted for nearly 30 years and resulted in the anemic Universities Act of 1853, which left admissions and curriculum alone and only added a religious test for theology professors. Round one had gone to the Scottish traditionalists. The impact of the 1858 commission was both more significant and more immediate. In 1854, the UK introduced a system of competitive entry into the civil service to replace the old patronage system. This placed Scottish students at a disadvantage, as it tended to
60 privilege students educated along the lines of the English degree (Keating, 2005; Davie, 1961). Scottish universities were “forced to downplay the old generalist degree (followed by specialist education as in the North American system) in favour of an honours degree on the English Model” (Keating, 2005, p. 424). Again, opposition to reform was strong. James Lorimer, Regius Professor of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh, exemplified the commitment to the superiority of the Scottish degree:
There is a school of thinking which is peculiarly Scotch, which derives from nourishment certainly not more from English than from Continental sources, and from which the only recognized appeal is to the wider tribunal of civilized mankind. It is not Scotchmen alone who are interested in preserving the distinctive existence of this school. To close it, or to merge it in that of England would be to shut up one of the most potent and hitherto most frequented avenues in the temple of truth (as quoted in Davie, 1961, p. 50-51).
Perhaps wisely in the face of this opposition, the direct questions of admissions and curriculum were avoided in the resulting legislation, and the resulting Universities Act of 1858 instead brought in changes to governance. The University Courts, composed of students and faculty, were created, as were General Councils that included representatives of the town, the Church, and business interests. At the sector level, an executive council was created, which had the ability to introduce reforms through ordinances. These changes created structures that, in theory, could effect change in the system. But predictably, attempted reforms led to renewed opposition, and a new Royal Commission was thought to be the only way to break the impasse. The 1876 Royal Commission again suggested the introduction of an entrance examination, and a more specialized curriculum with a greater emphasis on science. In the Universities (Scotland) Act that followed in 1889, the educational issues were again left to an executive commission, led by Lord Kinnear (Paterson, 2003b, p. 74). This executive commission was considerably more effective than its forbearer; it finally introduced an entrance examination, and also mandated that a school Leaving Certificate - signifying completion of formal secondary schooling - was considered equivalent to an examination for the purposes of university entry. A new Honours degree - providing students with more course choice and the ability to specialize in a discipline - was introduced alongside the traditional MA degree, now called the Ordinary Degree (Paterson, 2003b, p. 74). As with the entrance exam, a large part of the impetus for this new degree was the rise of the extensive civil service needed to manage the British Empire. According to Anderson (1983),
61 The growth of the civil service as a new career for graduates was especially significant because it brought Scottish students into direct competition with English ones; if the universities were to satisfy parents who aimed at the national “British” elite, they had to bring their standards into line, and this was a particular incentive for the development of Honours work (p. 324).
The civil service exam was meant to assess a candidate’s liberal education, which would seem to favour Scottish graduates. However, prospective Scottish entrants initially did quite poorly in the competition, recovering somewhat by the end of the 19th century. For Anderson (1983), the result of 70 years of controversy over the structure of university education in Scotland was the imposition of an entrance exam, which had the effect of disrupting the multiple pathways that had been available to aspiring Scottish students: entry through a parish or burgh school, or direct entry from adulthood. The entrance exam had the effect of pushing secondary-level education out of the universities and into true secondary schools that were in practice, Anderson suggests, less accessible than the older parish and burgh establishments. Paterson disputes that notion that the secondary sector were less accessible, as this sector was “expanding and democratising” throughout this period (2003b, p. 74). In either case, the link between the universities and the old parochial tradition had been seriously disrupted. The controversies of the 19th century reveals the final aspect of Scotland’s unique tradition of higher education: its construction in opposition to the English system. In each element, we see how a direct contrast is drawn - both by 19th century contemporaries and modern observers - between arrangements in the Scottish Ancients and in Oxford and Cambridge. Scotland’s universities are more connected to the local community than the standoffish and remote English universities. The degree is more academic and democratic than the narrow specialization found in the curriculums of Oxbridge. The Scottish and English universities were equally focused on educating an administrative elite, but Scotland did so in a way that was supposedly more open and accessible than England. Attempts to reform and modernize the sector were seen as the imposition of alien models from the South. As we have seen, sub-state governments with a nationalist project are continually searching for policy areas where they can draw a distinction between themselves and the national government. In higher education, Scotland’s nationalists have a pre-packaged and well- understood marker of difference. Moreover, it is seen to be a tradition under threat. The 19th century was period that saw the emergence of a shared national understanding of the distinctiveness of Scotland’s higher education sector - its close
62 relationship to the local community and the nascent Scottish nation, its unique approach to education and the intellectual tradition that is supported, and its open and egalitarian nature. Ironically, the various commissions of inquiry directed at the Scottish universities, each with the goal of introducing reforms to the institutions, had the net effect of refining the characteristics and supposed virtues of the Scottish tradition in the minds of its supporters. But the Scottish tradition has always had its critics - historical opponents, operating within the defining debates of the 1800s, and modern scholars, who question the accuracy of the Scottish tradition’s accomplishments. In the former group, including individuals like Thomas Chalmers and the aforementioned Samuel Johnson, who felt that the Scottish institutions were too open (notably to younger students), too broad in their curriculum, and troubled by archaic governance structures. The modern critics, while acknowledging that a recognizable Scottish tradition did exist, question whether it ever lived up to its high ideals. As will be discussed in later chapters, the 19thcentury Scottish universities, while more accessible than Oxbridge, nevertheless enrolled much higher proportions of wealthier students, and excluded significant segments of the population, notably women. These critical accounts can be sympathetic to the larger notion of the tradition, as with Anderson (1983) and Paterson (2003b), or, as exemplified by Smout (1986), somewhat derisive. These criticisms will be explored in more detail in chapter seven. The 19th century also saw the Scottish universities come under pressure in the Union, as administrative changes from reformers sympathetic to the English university model pushed the Ancients into an emerging UK-wide educational system. As Neave & Cowper (1979) assert, throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries there was an increasing conflict between the public myth of Scottish education, and its “private reality” (p. 20). The converging pressures imposed by the UK state, alongside emerging pressures created by the internationalization of universities, generally conspired to erode many of the historical aspects of the Scottish tradition. But the idea of a distinct tradition remains powerful, particularly in terms of shared beliefs about the egalitarian nature of Scottish education. In his influential Marxism and Literature, Raymond Williams notes that traditions, literary or otherwise, are not a “inert historicized segment” but rather act as “an intentionally selective version of a shaping past and a pre-shaped present, which is then powerfully operating in the process of social and cultural definition and identification” (1977, p. 115). As we have seen, the construction of the Scottish tradition was, and continues to be, an exercise in myth-making, where high-minded notions of the democratic and equitable nature of Scotland’s universities do not always align with the on-the-ground reality. But myths are powerful constructs, and the idea of educational
63 distinctiveness has historically been a key element of Scotland’s unique political identity. Consistent with Billig’s (1995) conception of banal nationalism, Scottish universities have become a site for the construction and “flagging” of the Scottish nation, a continuous reminder and reinforcer of a political community distinct from England. In the following chapter, we will explore how notions of the Scottish tradition in higher education are being deployed to shape the present by political actors in Scotland, as old ideas about Scottish universities are being married to new ideas about Scotland’s independence.
64 6. Convergence and Divergence - Scotland’s Universities from 1889 to 2014
By the beginning of the 20th century, higher education in Scotland found itself at an inflection point. On the one hand, the debates in preceding century had done much to cement a popular understanding of the distinct Scottish tradition of higher education. On the other, Scotland’s universities were increasingly pulled into a UK-wide higher education policy sphere that began to erode some of their distinctly Scottish characteristics. This pattern of convergence was itself partially disrupted by formal Devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament at the close of the century. This new political reality produced notable policy divergence, particularly in the area of student tuition fees. Tracing the development of higher education policy throughout the 20th century and into the early 21st, this chapter will examine the forces that have driven both policy convergence and divergence. As Riddell et al (2015) suggest, higher education in Scotland continues to face pressures towards greater policy convergence with the rest of the UK, while simultaneously experiencing pressures towards greater divergence in key areas like student finance and institutional funding. I will suggest that the convergence pressures are largely structural, corresponding to the policy dynamics associated with the expansion of higher education systems, alongside an increasing international focus on the part of the institutions. The pressures towards divergence, however, are almost completely political, driven by the particular ideologies and agendas of political actors in Scotland. This observation carries an implicit hypothesis, that divergence has intensified as the debate around Scottish independence - arguably the most politically salient issue of the past decade in Scotland - progressed towards the 2014 referendum.
Forces of Convergence
The 20th century saw a similar policy story enacted across the higher education sectors of Western industrialized nations. Two important trends drove policy development in these jurisdictions. First, growing citizen demand for higher education led to the rise of what Martin Trow (1973) described as “mass” higher education. This dramatic expansion in higher education participation during the 20th century required significant new investment by governments, which came to believe that increased enrolment was necessary for national success in the emerging global knowledge economy. University research also became connected to national and sub-state economic development, a phenomenon that will be explored further in chapter eight. The second trend was the increasing internationalization of
65 universities, which saw both increased cooperation and competition across sub-national and national boundaries and the emergence of regional higher education areas, such as that promulgated by the European Union. A key marker of this trend has been the rise of international university rankings, such as those published by the Times Higher Education, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities. Within these larger trends are smaller but important policy developments, including the establishment of formal vocational training systems, typically in the form of vocational or technical colleges, and the creation of complex student financial assistance programs to facilitate expanded access. All of these trends came to bear on Scotland in the 110 years between the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Several observers have suggested that these pressures had the net effect of diminishing several of the distinct characteristics of Scottish universities while bringing them into close alignment with their rest-of-UK (rUK) counterparts. The post-war period, in particular, was marked by the Scottish universities, “growing absorption into a British realm of policy” (Paterson, 2003b, p. 155). The nature of this convergence will be explored in the following sections.
Integration and Differentiation, 1889-1961
As discussed in the previous chapter, the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 pushed the Ancient Universities to introduce an entrance examination and adjust their curriculum and implement some governance changes. The net effect of these reforms was to disrupt the link between the parish schools and the universities, as an entrance examination required preparation in the emerging formal secondary schools. The new curriculum, while still more academic and generalist than Oxford and Cambridge, had nevertheless moved closer to the English model. At the same time, “it became accepted that a modern university needed new buildings, laboratories, and junior staff if it was to meet the demands of the age for practical teaching and the advancement of research” (Anderson, 1983, p. 252). The Scottish Ancients had long been the recipients of public funds (Bell, 2000), but prior to Union these amounts were modest, and tended to come from municipal and regional sources. State support for the Scottish universities had been established in the Act of Union, and in the 1830s amounted to £5,000-£6,000 (Anderson, 1983, p. 36). These amounts were inadequate for a growing sector, and in response the 1889 Act made funding more substantial and regular. The Act entitled the sector to £42,000, which increased to £72,000 pounds in 1892 following lobbying by the
66 institutions- approximately £9 million in 2020 currency (p. 273).4 This funding was used primarily to support building projects and to fund university chairs in specific subjects (Shattock, 2007; Court, 2004). Direct funding of professorial salaries by the state was another peculiarity of the Scottish system that further outlines the close relationship between the universities and government. The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland - funded by the immense personal wealth of erstwhile-Scot Andrew Carnegie - also made substantial investments in Scottish institutions that helped facilitate expansion. As Paterson (2003b) and Anderson (1983) observe, the Trust effectively functioned as “a ministry for the Scottish universities, requiring them to draw up plans for development,” much the same as a government department would operate (Paterson, 2003b, p. 82). The Trust provided £40,000 for infrastructure projects and nearly £60,000 in bursaries for students that covered class fees. By 1904, approximately half of Scottish university students were Carnegie beneficiaries (Anderson, 1983, p. 289). While the sums provided by the state and the Carnegie are small by contemporary standards, they helped set the stage for expansion of the university system in the 20th century. The Scottish Ancients were also heavily dependent on student fees during this period. In 1894, an average of 36 per cent of institutional funding came from student fees, with 22 per cent coming from endowments and an additional 22 per cent from the state.5 In 1907, the proportion of revenue from student fees had significantly increased, rising to an average of 41 per cent (Anderson, 1983, p. 289). It should also be noted that the contrast between the orientation and function of universities in Scotland and England began to weaken throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. This shift was not just the function of the reforms to Scottish institutions introduced through the 1889 Act. English institutions began to change as well. Oxford and Cambridge continued to be the preserve of the English elite, but as they moved closer to government through enhanced public funding, they began to open up to a wider demographic of students and to new, more public-oriented purposes. More significantly, new universities emerged in England that operated much more like the Scottish Ancients than their Oxbridge peers. Beginning with University College, London in 1826 and the University of London in 1836, these new institutions were secular and welcomed students from the emerging urban middle class (Fallis, 2007). This trend continued with the new civic or “Redbrick”
4 Inflation calculation performed at https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/ 5 Note that these average figures obscure significant variation between institutions. In 1894, for example, Edinburgh received nearly 50 per cent of its income from student fees, while St. Andrews only received 17 per cent. However, the latter institution also took in 33 per cent of its revenue from endowments, compared to 14 per cent at Edinburgh.
67 universities that were founded in Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester, and Birmingham throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. As Fallis (2007) notes, all of these new institutions “were intended to provide both skilled manpower and new research for British industry” (p. 78) and evolved to become “places of applied research, connected to industry, and relatively accessible” (p.89). In this orientation, the civic/Redbrick universities echoed the connection to the economic and social needs of the community that has long been a part of the Scottish tradition. In 1919, the University Grants Committee (UGC) was founded by the UK government as “a ‘buffer’ between government and universities to channel government funds to institutions in England, Wales, and Scotland” (Court, 2004). This introduced a level of standardization to government funding that had previously not existed. Prior to 1889, Oxford and Cambridge had received almost no public funds at all; thereafter they began to quickly make up ground on the Scottish institutions. The grant to the English institutions grew year over year, while the grant to the Ancients remained fixed at £72,000. An increase of £40,000 was approved only in 1910, but as a requirement for disbursement the universities were required to adopt an “inclusive fee” for a complete degree program, rather than the pay-per- course model that had existed previously. Acquiescence to this demand signaled that the Scottish universities were now in “a new and more prosaic era” of their history (Anderson, 1983, p. 290). Whereas the 19th century had been dominated by a series of public commissions, and active public debate around any perceived anglicization of the institutions, university reform no longer commanded the same public attention that it had between 1850 and 1890. A reform like the inclusive fee, especially since it was pushed onto the universities by the central UK state, would have previously engendered vigorous debate but, in the end, was greeted with little outcry. This development was the result of growing integration with a wider UK higher education sphere, the more formal administrative arrangements that came with it and growing comfort with these arrangements within the sector. Negotiation between Treasury officials and university principals supplanted public debate and advocacy was increasingly done by “polite pressure groups” (Anderson, 1983, p. 290). This change in relationship tracked closely with the Scottish universities’ dependence on state funding. By 1960, 73 per cent of Scottish university funding came from the state, and 90 per cent of that money was directly disbursed by the UGC (Paterson, 2003b, p.163). After a dip in enrolment in the late 1800s and again in the First World War, student numbers began to gradually rise beginning in1919. One of the primary drivers of this increase in enrolment was the admission of women to the Ancient universities in the late 19th century.
68 For the first half of the 20th century, growth was accommodated within the Ancient Universities and three new types of institution- Central Institutions, the teacher training colleges and, finally, a system of local technical colleges that was created in the post-war period. Beginning in 1901, many existing technical and vocational institutes in Scotland were given the “central institution” designation, just as similar institutions would become known as polytechnics in the rest of the UK. Founded in response to the perceived lack of coordination in technical training, these new institutions were given access to government grants equivalent to 50 per cent of their total expenditure. There were four of these institutions by 1902, rising to 16 in 1909 - a significant and rapid expansion by any standard. Despite initial reluctance, many of these institutions began to offer university-level “advanced” courses. By 1960, over 3,700 students were taking classes at this advanced level, compared to around15,000 students in the universities (Paterson, 2003b, p. 156). The Central Institutions were also diverse; the designation included a variety of agricultural colleges, schools of art, a conservatoire focused on music and drama, and technical institutes focused on the needs of industry. The central institutions were controlled and funded by the Scottish Education Department, part of the administrative apparatus of the Scotland Office, just as the polytechnics were administered by the Local Education Authorities in England and Wales. In effect, this created a dual system, where one group of higher education institutions - Oxford, Cambridge, the Scottish Ancients, and the Victorian redbrick universities - was integrated into a national funding system administered by the University Grants Council, while the other part remained under the control of local and regional authorities (Neave & Cowper, 1976). Teacher training colleges had existed in Scotland for centuries, controlled in most cases by religious orders and funded by the state. Graduates of these institutions tended to teach in the rural parish schools, while the burgh and new secondary schools were staffed by university-trained instructors. The creation of a more formal secondary school system in the 19th century created significant new demands for trained teachers, and this brought the universities into conflict with the Scottish Education Department. The universities desired the influx of students (and revenue) represented by the growing teaching profession, and the SED wanted training done in the colleges where they exerted more direct control. In the end, the SED was largely successful in keeping teacher training out of the universities, and professional teacher training had disappeared from universities by the 1920s. Ultimately, the universities did not suffer in this new relationship, as prospective teachers made up the majority of students in the arts faculties well into the early 20th century. These individuals would take a number of university courses before leaving to secure their teaching credentials
69 in a college. This created pressure for the training colleges to operate at a university level, as many of their students had at least some university experience and expected a similar quality of instruction. In this way, the principles of general and academic education, as embodied in the university curriculum, were preserved and inculcated into a growing number of teachers (Anderson, 1983). Their training also reflected the ideal of democratic access, as “the route through university into teaching was a means by which large numbers of working-class boys and girls entered a profession” (Paterson, 2003b, p. 87). As a result, the teacher training colleges helped make good the notion of Scottish educational egalitarianism. As Anderson (1983) argues, the “mechanisms of opportunity” that operated in the higher education sector had, in practice, actually favoured the rural middle class and not the urban working class (p. 295). Teacher training, at least in the pre-war period, helped open the door to higher education for this latter group. A system of technical and vocational colleges was established and funded in Scotland in the 1950s. Prior to this, technical and vocational education was delivered through a patchwork of Mechanics’ Institutes and, later, many of the central institutions. The Mechanics’ Institutes originally began thanks to the generosity and foresight of several individuals working within the Ancient Universities. The first such Institute - Anderson’s Institution - was founded in 1796 through a bequest from Professor John Anderson of the University of Glasgow, who, as we saw in the previous chapter, was somewhat of a pioneer in offering open courses in natural philosophy to city residents and who emphasized the teaching of practical subjects that might benefit commerce and industry (Devine, 2012; Butt, 2000). The second head of Anderson’s Institution, Dr George Birkbeck, went on to champion the cause of adult and working-class education across the UK, founding the influential London Mechanic’s Institute in 1823. This institution went on to become Birkbeck College, now part of the University of London, and continues to focus on adult and part-time education. Similarly, Anderson’s Institution eventually became the University of Strathclyde. Much of this activity was undertaken through the initiative of individuals and community organizations and lacked central coordination and - more importantly - access to government funding. The Technical Schools (Scotland) Act of 1887 established “the concept of technical education in every town, large and small,” but this was, “a dead letter, because local authorities did not receive parliamentary grants for any schools which they established” (Butt, 2000, p. 183). The lack of funding led first to the widespread belief that the 1887 Act was a failure and second to the establishment of the Central Institutions to create a more coordinated system. However, the central institutions were clustered in major population
70 centres, depriving the outlying rural regions of much-needed vocational training. In response, the SED sanctioned the creation of technical colleges in 1949, which they placed under the control of five regional councils for technical education, similar to arrangements in the rest of the UK (Paterson, 2003b). This regional governance structure, it was thought, would keep the colleges focused on the economic needs of their local communities. Again, expansion was rapid and involved significant investment by the state. By 1961, some £17 million had been spent to create 50 colleges, compared to a yearly capital allocation of around £1.6 million to the universities. In 1956, there were 4,363 students enrolled in full-time courses at the further education colleges, and many more studying on a part-time basis. Through a series of mergers, re-designations and renamings, including a recent consolidation under the current SNP government (more on that in chapter seven), there are 26 further education colleges now operating. From the outset, they attracted a large number of lower-income and working-class students. As Paterson observes, “they were more democratically accessible than the universities, and partly as a result they, like the central institutions before them, moved slowly in the direction of providing courses in higher education” (Paterson, 2003b, p. 108). Over time, and like the central institutions, the further education colleges have become an important part of higher education provision in Scotland. They provide a variety of vocational qualifications to Scottish students, including the Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ), the Higher National Certificate (HNC), and the Higher National Diploma (HND). Both the HNC and HND qualifications are considered to be higher education credentials, although at the sub-degree level. In 1991, 27 per cent of Scottish undergraduates were studying at a further education institution. By 1999, this number had risen to 34 per cent (Gallacher, 2009). Many HND programs are also designed as equivalent to the first two years of a degree program, allowing students who gain this credential to continue study at a university. Thus, the further education colleges also play an access and transfer role, and provide “articulation routes that are now an important feature of widening participation policy in Scotland” (Gallacher, 2009, p. 395) With the creation of the central institutions, teacher training colleges and further education colleges throughout the first half of the 20th century, a curious duality emerged in Scotland’s postsecondary sector. The universities, dependent on funding from the central state, increasingly became part of a UK-wide policy sphere, accountable to authorities in London. The other institutional types remained either distinctly Scottish - the central institutions and teacher training colleges were supervised by the SED - or highly local, with the further education colleges subject to local control. In this sense, the newer institutions
71 were consistent a key part of the historical Scottish tradition - the close connection to host communities and a focus on serving the needs of Scottish - not UK - society.
The Robbins Principle and Expansion, 1962 - 1992
Following World War II, demands for education from demobilized servicemen, coupled with a growing recognition of the importance of higher education to both social mobility and the economic success of the nation, led to expansion and a concomitant increase in government funding for universities in most developed nations. In 1925, Scottish universities received £25 million pounds through the UGC. By 1950, this amount had grown to £38 million. But even this level of funding was seen as insufficient to meet demand. In the early 1960s, the United Kingdom was faced with what many contemporary observers referred to as an emergency in higher education - a system too small to meet demand and satisfy the needs of a modernizing economy. With a huge demographic bubble - the baby boomers - expected to hit the higher education system in the coming decade, the emergency prompted state action. In 1961, the Conservative government of Harold MacMillan appointed Lionel Robbins - a professor of economics at the London School of Economics (who had worked under, and clashed with, welfare state architect William Beveridge) to, “review the pattern of full-time higher education in Great Britain and in the light of national needs and resources to advise Her Majesty’s Government on what principles its long-term development should be based” (Committee on Higher Education, 1963, p. 1).6 Policymaking in the UK higher education sector has frequently been characterized by high-profile commissions and committees, whose reports and recommendations become watershed moments in policy development. This dynamic was true of the various commissions - Royal or otherwise - which examined Scottish higher education in the 19th century. But the long-term significance of Robbins’ committee was to dwarf previous efforts and loom large over the UK’s higher education institutions for decades. The final report of the Committee on Higher Education articulated what became known as the “Robbins Principle,” which became a central plank of policymaking in the sector for the next 40 years: “Courses of higher education should be
6 Robbins’ mandate refers to “Great Britain,” which confined the analysis to England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland had achieved limited self-government of internal affairs through the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, the same piece of legislation that partitioned the island into its northern and southern components. The six counties of Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, while the southern portion eventually became the independent Republic of Ireland. The parliament of Northern Ireland had control over its two universities - Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University, established in 1810 (as Queen’s College) and 1865 (as Magee College) respectively. Northern Ireland was thus excluded from the report.
72 available to all those who by ability and attainment are qualified to do so” (Committee on Higher Education, 1963, p. 8). This principle had two direct policy implications. First, there should be enough spaces in universities, polytechnics/central institutions, further education colleges and the specialized institutions to accommodate a growing student population. Meeting the anticipated demand would therefore require significant expansion of the existing system- from the 216,000 spaces available across the UK in 1963 to 390,000 in 1973 and 560,000 in 1980, or a 159 per cent increase (Committee on Higher Education, 1963, p. 277). The second implication was that potential financial barriers facing students wishing to access higher education needed to be mitigated or removed. The Robbins Report cast the future of the higher education system in terms of central national importance:
Not only is it a probable condition for the maintenance of our material position in the world, but, much more, it is an essential condition for the realisation in the modern age of the ideals of a free and democratic society (p. 267).
The Robbins Report did not actually recommend free higher education in so many words. This innovation actually preceded the Committee’s report by five years, as a result of yet another investigatory panel, this one created to assess the financial support available to UK students and make recommendations. Under the leadership of Colin Anderson, the Committee on Grants to Students found that, “90 per cent of students were then receiving some help - widely though it varied - through state, local authority, or university scholarships, plus a dose of charity,” and recommended that these grants be “universalized and standardized” (Timmins, 1995, p. 202). The implementation of Anderson’s recommendations meant that, in effect, higher education was now free for most first-entry students in the United Kingdom, Scotland included. Most institutions still had a notional tuition fee, but this was offset by non-repayable assistance from the state and accompanied by maintenance grants that were intended to cover living costs (Committee on Grants to Students, 1958). The recommendations of the Anderson Committee were implemented by the government during the work of the Robbins and his committee, so he likely understood that his call for all qualified students to have access to higher education would be almost completely underwritten by the state. Robbins and his committee examined whether a system of student loans would be more sustainable or desirable, and found that the arguments for and against repayable assistance were, “very evenly balanced” and noted that the committee membership was divided on the issue (Committee on Higher Education, 1963, p. 212). Nevertheless, the final report recommended against the adoption of loans, but left the issue
73 open for future consideration:
But if, as time goes on, the habit [of attending higher education] is more firmly established, the arguments of justice in distribution and of the advantage of increasing individual responsibility may come to weigh more heavily and lead to some experiments in this direction (p. 212).
This open door was to have significant impact 35 years later when, indeed, an era of experimentation with fees and student loans began to define higher education in the UK, particularly in England. Much of the report was adopted by the government, which embarked on a 10-year, £3.5 billion investment in the sector. The fact that total public expenditure was £11 billion at this time highlights the scale of this investment. As journalist Nicholas Timmins - a critic of some elements of the welfare state - wryly observes, for the universities and other institutions, “money flowed as if from fountains…Great tracts of green fields disappeared under expanding universities and halls of residence” (1995, p. 202). The impact of this investment was felt immediately in Scotland. When compared with pre-war levels of funding, universities received six times more public dollars by 1970. By 1990, funding had grown by a factor of 10 when compared with the early 20th century (Paterson, 2003b, p. 13). Comparatively flush with resources, the Scottish system dutifully expanded. Enrolment in the universities more than doubled by 1970, with the central institutions and further education colleges experiencing similar growth. In 1958, around 13 per cent of the total UK university- aged cohort was in higher education. The corresponding figure in Scotland was 12 per cent. By 1995, the UK figure reached 43 per cent while 45 per cent of Scottish youth entered university (Paterson, 2003b, p. 17). In fact, the Scottish figure was likely much higher, given the large number of part-time students not included in these statistics. Four new universities were created in the wake of Robbins: the University of Strathclyde (formerly Anderson’s Institution, in 1964), Heriot-Watt University (from the School of Arts of Edinburgh, previously a Central Institution, in 1966), the University of Dundee (from University College, which had been affiliated to St. Andrew’s, in 1967), and the University of Stirling (1967). As it was created without any antecedent institution, Stirling was notable as the first completely new university founded in Scotland for 385 years. Fittingly, Robbins - now Lord Robbins - became Stirling’s first chancellor. Whereas the 19th century was marked by three major commissions examining Scottish higher education, there was no specific appraisal of Scottish higher education in the 20th
74 century. For Paterson (2003b), the result was a tendency for the Scottish institutions to be swept along with large-scale reforms instituted by the central UK state. No single moment defines this tendency better than the implementation of the Robbins reforms. The report itself did not give any special consideration to Scottish institutions in its recommendations, beyond cataloguing the differences in provision between the four home nations. As Paterson (2003b) notes, the observation that a central goal of higher education was “the transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship,” was consistent with the Scottish tradition (Committee on Higher Education, 1963, p. 7). But the committee “did not acknowledge any Scottish precedents for this aspect of their recommendations” (Paterson, 2003b, p. 173). The fact that Scottish higher education was treated the same as universities in Wales and England in the Robbins Committee’s analysis and recommendations demonstrates the degree to which Scottish institutions were seen - and had begun to see themselves - as part of a sector that included all of Great Britain, supported through policymaking by the government in London. There was, nonetheless, an undercurrent of resistance to this absorption into an English- dominate national education system. For Paterson (2003b), the period following the Robbins Report saw “an emerging dispute over what ought to be the true character of Scottish higher learning - an inherited, Scottish and putatively democratic one, or elite and British” (p. 155). Expansion was also controversial in England. State-funded growth accompanied by a new commitment to equitable access was seen to threaten the traditional English ways of forming economic, social, and political elites, as exemplified by the Oxbridge university model. In other words, and as Neave (1976, & Cowper, 1979) would suggest, university expansion threatened to upset England’s prevailing norm of sponsored social mobility. Conversely, Scotland’s norm of contest mobility, and its already more diverse university student profile, meant that the debate of university expansion occurred in a very different space. The Scottish concern was the effect expansion would have on the institutions themselves, in terms of pedagogy and educational philosophy. Since the universities were considered the pinnacle of the national education system in Scotland, a change in university curriculum driven by expanding enrolments might have a corresponding effect on national culture, and bring about a greater integration with the English higher education system (Neave & Cowper, 1979, p. 18). For Paterson (2003b), the debate around Scottish universities in an expansionist era centred on “access, curriculum and cultural loyalty” (p. 157). The fear was that, on the one hand, Scotland’s “democratic” curriculum - whereby all students received a comprehensive and academic education - would be replaced by English utilitarianism and academic
75 specialization. On the other, the worry was that Scottish universities were becoming less “local” and connected to their geographic regions as they increasingly aligned to the funding structures created by the central UK state. Again, the controversy was framed in terms of the external threat posed by the imposition of English values and practices. It was against this background that Davie penned The Democratic Intellect, outlining the inherited features of Scottish education and lamenting the loss of its academic and democratic character. As Paterson (2003a) notes,
By the late 1960s, the values of the democratic intellect were being held up in Scotland as the measure of a truly authentic academic culture, against the allegedly anglicizing – indeed English – staff of the original four universities. Inspired by the writing of George Davie, there was also the view that the humanism of the old democratic intellectualism had been debased by English utilitarianism, reaching a nadir, it was argued, in the succumbing of the universities to the vocationalism and instrumentalism of UK governments after the 1970s (p. 69).
Davie’s book was to frame much of the debate about higher learning in Scotland throughout the latter half of the 20th century. However, these debates never rose to the level of the controversies of the 19th century, further highlighting the changing relationship between Scotland and its universities.
Nationalization and Intervention, 1979-1999
The reforms implemented following the Robbins Report are properly understood as the integration of the higher education systems in England, Wales and Scotland into the expanding British welfare state. Free university education and generous maintenance grants meant that access to higher education was included within the UK’s conception of social citizenship. Access to higher education became an entitlement, and, as demand for university places grew, it became increasingly expensive for the central state to sustain its commitment. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, expansion in all parts of the UK’s post-secondary sector - colleges, polytechnics/central institutions and universities - was significant. In 1960, Scotland had 4.5 full-time higher education students per thousand population, compared to four in 1950. By 1970, this number had increased to 10 per thousand population, effectively doubling the participation rate in a decade (Paterson, 2003b, p. 156). But the greatest increase was to occur beginning in the late 1970s and continue through the 1990s. In this period, the UK and Scotland transitioned to a true mass higher education system, with a corresponding
76 increase in government expenditure. With the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, this high level of spending came under increasing scrutiny. The Thatcher era “saw a series of attacks on university autonomy in the United Kingdom and a determined effort to remold them as state institutions almost on continental lines” (Keating, 2005, p. 426). The Thatcher government first took the approach of imposing deep cuts on the universities, but then reversed course and embarked on a program focused on accelerating expansion. The price of this expansion was increased government oversight. The long-standing autonomy and self-regulating nature of British universities frustrated attempts to impose direct bureaucratic and fiscal control, so the government instead “opted to make them compete in the attainment of specific targets” (Keating, 2005, p. 426). The UGC – which had been staffed primarily by academics - was abolished in 1988 in favour of the Universities Funding Council (UFC), with greater accountability to the state, and with a new focus on the needs of business and industry (Keating, 2005). New competitive and evaluative structures were created, such as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and the Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA). The imposition of state control over universities through competitive programs and accountability mechanisms is an example of what Neave (2012) terms the “evaluative state,” where institutional autonomy “became an operational, multi- faceted, renewable and therefore largely conditional contract” between the university and the government (p. 36). The rise of the evaluative state in the United Kingdom “drove higher education from being grounded in a form of organic development towards a regulated system with an increasing and accelerating emphasis on government steering” (2012, p. 44). This development actually ran counter to concurrent trends in Continental Europe, which emphasized increased institutional autonomy in previously state-dominated systems. In 1992, the Thatcher government passed the Further and Higher Education Act, which contained several significant reforms for the higher education sector. First, it eliminated the “binary line” between the polytechnics and central institutions, on one side, and the universities on the other. This change allowed many of the old polytechnics and central institutions to refer to themselves as universities, what are now referred to as “post- 92” institutions in the UK. The 1992 Act added five new universities to Scotland - Edinburgh Napier, Robert Gordon, the University of the West of Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian, and the University of Abertay Dundee. For their part, the teacher training colleges found it more expedient to merge with individual universities, rather to carry on as independent under the new requirements of the Act. The duality of the postsecondary system - national policymaking for the universities through the UGC/UFC and regional/local control of the
77 polytechnics and further education colleges - was also ended by the legislation. Control of the further education colleges was taken away from regional councils and invested in institution- specific Boards of Governors. All of the institutions, including the universities, were brought under the purview of new funding bodies, each based in one of Great Britain’s home nations: the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and the Scottish Funding Council (under home rule provisions, funding and regulation of Northern Ireland’s small sector is managed by its Department for the Economy). The creation of these sub-national funding models was an intriguing move by a government otherwise focused on greater centralization and control of the universities, but at least in the Scottish case, represented an extension of the principles of administrative devolution. Policy and overall funding levels for higher education were still determined in London, but Scotland had acquired a measure of control in how that funding was disbursed. Throughout the expansionary period of the 1960s through 1990s, research policy also became a driver of integration between the Scottish universities and the UK higher education sector. The UK’s research councils were established in 1965 according to the “Haldane Principle.” Named for Richard Haldane, chair of the 1918 commission that advanced the idea that research should be evaluated by other researchers and free from political interference, the principle has remained at the core of UK research policy ever since. In practice, adherence to the principle meant that the responsibility for funding basic or curiosity-driven research lay with the councils, while more practical research was funded directly by the relevant government department (Riddell, 2016b, p. 130). There are now nine research councils in the UK, and in 2018-19 they disbursed £3.1 billion in grants to UK researchers (UK Research & Innovation, 2019). Outside of the research council framework, research activity in the UK prior to the 1980s was, “relatively unplanned and uncoordinated, with academics enjoying considerable freedom to pursue their own research agendas and interests” (Riddell, 2016b, p. 129). The UGC distributed funding to the universities in a block grant to support both teaching and research, and there was little transparency on how the grant was spent by individual institutions (Ibid., p. 129). Again, this arrangement ended under the Thatcher government, replaced by a more accountability-driven regime. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), introduced in 1986, used peer review to evaluate the quality of an institution’s research output, usually on a departmental basis. Research units received a star rating - from one to four - and the higher the rating, the more funding received by that particular unit. The RAE ran every five years until 2008, when it was replaced by the Research Excellence Framework
78 (REF). The REF continued the basic logic of the RAE, but put an even greater emphasis on impact defined as, “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” (UK Research and Innovation, 2019b). The first REF was conducted in 2014 for the years 2008- 2013, and the next evaluation cycle will conclude in 2021. While overall funding allocations resulting from the RAE and REF were determined at the UK level, the sub-national funding councils have exercised some freedom in how the funding is disbursed to individual institutions within their remit. In 2001, for example, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) was highly selective in awarding funds to only the highest ranked institutions, while Scotland and Wales took a less competitive approach. By 2008, however, all of the regional funding councils had moved towards a more selective model (Gallacher & Raffe, 2012). In addition to funding provided through the RAE/REF and the research councils, a significant amount of research funding comes into Scottish universities through large, UK-wide medical charities, such as Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust. A final significant source of research funds is the European Union, although this funding has historically been quite small compared to UK sources. The RAE and REF have been controversial since their introduction, with critics pointing out their tendency to privilege certain kinds of research, reward already high- performing institutions while preventing lower-rated institutions from improving by starving them of funds, and advance research over teaching (Riddell, 2016b, p. 129) . A full exploration of these critiques is beyond the scope of this paper. The salient point is that during the 20th century, Scotland was enmeshed in a UK-wide research funding system, where the funding parameters are set by the central UK state and its agencies. Given the importance of research funding to the universities, this reality is a powerful driver of convergence between Scottish institutions and the rest of the UK. In order to succeed in a UK-wide competitive funding framework - through both the RAE/REF and the research councils - it has been necessary for the Scottish institutions to align themselves to both the needs and rules of the entire United Kingdom, not just to the economic, social and cultural requirements of Scotland. Taken together, the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s are described by Keating (2005) as the “nationalization” of universities in Scotland, Wales and England. Scottish universities were bound to an accountability framework determined by London and crafted by Conservative governments with almost no Scottish electoral support. In an important sense, all universities in the United Kingdom were now, arguably, more in service of the national
79 government than they had ever been, undermining the special claim that the Scottish institutions had to a more civic or national orientation. The ascension of the evaluative state in Great Britain disrupted the Scottish tradition by imposing a standardized relationship with the UK and by removing from that relationship any referent to the particular social and economic needs of Scotland. Indeed, in terms of the core elements of the historical tradition of Scottish higher education - a connection to community, a “democratic” and academic education as expressed in the curriculum, and greater accessibility to a wider social demographic - expansion was seen by many observers as threatening the “Scottishness” of higher education. The first and most obvious challenge was the greater integration of the Scottish universities into the UK’s higher education sector. Rapidly rising investment, necessary to support growing enrolment, increased pressure to distribute the new funding in “accordance with an overall national plan for universities” (Bell, 2000, p. 171). This led to “growing centralization of government control over universities through the British state” that saw Scottish institutions “meshed into a financial system inevitably dominated by the needs and assumptions of England whose ministry of education oversaw the UGC’s operations” (Bell, 2000, p. 172). Paterson (2003b) adds that the “price of expansion” was that higher education now “more tightly related to policy makers’ perceptions of the needs of the economy,” with corresponding implications for the curriculum (p.159). The majority of the new funding was distributed through the UGC and its successor organizations, and as a result, their role as a driver of integration between the Scottish universities’ and the wide UK higher education sphere accelerated (Paterson, 2003b, p. 159). There is evidence that the localness of the Scottish universities, or their focus on students from their geographic catchment and on the particular social and economic needs of their host communities, also eroded during this time. Lindsay Paterson (2003b) provides an illuminating account of how the absorption of the Scottish universities into the broader UK system disrupted this local character. The creation of a Great Britain-wide university entrance process further weakened the link between the universities and the Scottish secondary schools, a process that had begun with the introduction of an entrance exam following the 1889 Act. This disruption, in turn, also damaged the distinctly Scottish belief in “a common educational ethos from primary to university” (Paterson, 2003b, p. 157). Bursaries and other forms of financial aid - once so important to the lad o’pairts ideal at places like Aberdeen - were uploaded to the central state following the Robbins reforms. Students also began to go farther afield for their postsecondary studies. In 1962, approximately two-thirds of school- leaver entrants to a Scottish university came from their local area. By 1972, this number was
80 54 per cent and by 1982, less than half of university students were local. Increasingly, the universities looked beyond the borders of Scotland to fill their spaces, perhaps due to the growing integration of the English, Welsh and Scottish sectors. In 1952, approximately 80 per cent of students studying at a Scottish university were domiciled in Scotland. This number fell to less than 60 per cent across Scotland in the 1980s, and was less than 40 per cent at St. Andrew’s (Paterson, 2003b, p. 159). There is some evidence that these numbers began to recover through the 1990s and first two decades of the 2000s. According to University and College Application Service (2019) data, approximately 73 per cent of students now studying at Scottish universities are domiciled in Scotland (the abolition of tuition fees for these students perhaps helps explain this recovery). In addition to the decline in the proportion of students from the universities’ local region and from Scotland overall, there is evidence that integration into the UK higher education sphere affected the sense that the institutions were part of a distinct Scottish system and were accountable to the economic and social needs of Scottish citizens. Writing in 1954, Sir Hector Hetherington, Principal at Glasgow, presents what might be described as a typically English view of the relationship between the university and the nation:
Universities have always been, and they are private institutions, constituted by legal process but largely self-perpetuating, self-governing and under no orders from the state … There has never been a national system of University education at all (Hetherington, 1954, p. 1)
Contrast this with comments made by James Donaldson, principal of St. Andrews, made a half century earlier:
The Scottish Universities are not private corporations- they are national seats of learning, existing for the nation, and controlled by the Parliament of the nation. And the Universities have no wish to become independent of the state, or to be removed from the control of the state (as quoted in Anderson, 1983, p. 260).
As we have seen, in the period preceding significant integration with the UK, there was a widespread belief that universities existed to serve that Scottish nation and comfort among senior university leaders with the close relationship between their institutions and the state, as identified by Neave (1976), Patterson (2003b) and Anderson (1983). Indeed, as Anderson asserts, “the idea that the Scottish universities were ever “private” institutions is … historically doubtful,” and “in the 19th century, Scottish public opinion had little doubt that the universities formed a national system, and the Act of Union was held to guarantee their
81 existence” (1983, p. 293). But Hetherington’s remarks suggest that the notion that Scottish institutions existed to serve their local communities and the Scottish nation had receded significantly by the mid-20th century. In one crucial respect, expansion and integration arguably advanced one aspect of the historical Scottish tradition - the ideal of democratic access to higher education. Indeed, with generous grants covering tuition fees and living costs, any prospective 20th century lad o’pairts benefitted from a level of state support unimaginable in the 1800s. A growing system also meant that there were many more spaces available to qualified students. Relative to population, Scotland was especially successful in creating new university spaces when compared to England. According to statistics gathered by Neave (1976) from the OECD and various English and Scottish government sources, in 1970-71 there were 76.3 university places per 10,000 residents in Scotland, compared to 43.3 in England and Wales, a difference of 76 per cent (p. 133). This was likely a function of the historically high number of higher education institutions and smaller population in Scotland compared to England, but positioned Scotland well to take advantage of increased state resources. Student numbers also did more than grow in absolute terms- expansion also made the system more democratic in the sense of student demographics, expanding the age, gender and social class of participants. As Paterson (2003b) notes, “in a formal statistical sense, then, the expansion seemed to have come much closer to making much more of a reality of the putative tradition of open access to university” (p. 167). But the reality on the ground was somewhat more complicated. The demographic diversification was significantly aided by the further education colleges, which began to play a more significant role in the provision of sub-degree higher education through the 1980s and 1990s. While women made significant progress in university enrolment, the expansion of age and social class was likely driven by the FECs. Whether students from working-class backgrounds benefitted from the Robbins reforms is difficult to assess. Looking at the numbers, the proportion of working-class students (defined as students whose parents worked in a manual occupation), actually declined throughout the post-Robbins period, from 34 per cent in 1963 to 18 per cent in 1990 (Paterson, 2003b, p. 158). The working class as a whole was declining in size during this period, so at least some of this decrease can be explained by larger demographic trends. The proportional decline in working-class participation does hint at the primary beneficiaries of the Robbins expansion- the sons and daughters of the burgeoning urban and suburban middle class. They began to attend university is such numbers that they simply swamped the upper- and working-class attendees, decreasing their proportion of overall enrolment even if absolute numbers
82 remained relatively stable. In reality, as Paterson (2003b) points out, the working class did benefit from the expansion “in the sense that opportunity to enter the universities was extended, but the relative disadvantage of the working class did not change” (p. 158). Viewing the trends identified by Patterson and others, it is likely that more working-class students found their way into Scottish universities due to the Robbins reforms, but nowhere near the proportions of their middle- and upper-class colleagues and thus remained proportionally under-served. Similar trends can be found across many industrialized nations throughout the 20th century. Thus, on the eve of Devolution, “the universities, old and new, were therefore becoming less local, less Scottish and - compared to the higher education colleges - less working class” (Paterson, 2003b, p. 159). The expansionary period that began after the Second World War, accelerated following the Robbins reforms, and reached its zenith under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, had disrupted many traditional elements of the Scottish universities. The localness of the universities - both in terms of their direct service to their host communities and their alignment with the needs of the Scottish nation - has faded as they accommodated themselves to the requirements of the UK state. Many aspects of the academic and comprehensive university curriculum had succumbed to the specialization that now characterizes degree programs across the UK, and indeed across most of the industrialized world (though a vestige of the old general curriculum survived in the four-year Scottish degree). While belief in the unique historical tradition of higher education in Scotland continued, in practical terms much of it was in active retreat. Only in terms of equity had the tradition notably advanced. But even here, the commitment to access that came about as a result of the Robbins reforms was a UK-wide policy, not something distinctly Scottish. This reality helped fuel the idea that the Scottish universities were threatened by the UK. This notion factored into the successful campaign for formal Devolution. As Paterson (2003b) notes, the Devolution vote was in part driven by, “a belief that the education system needed to be safeguarded and, probably, that the reforms that had been achieved in the 1960s and after needed to be taken further” (p. 29). In the debate over devolution in the 1970s, the Scottish universities had been actively hostile to constitutional change, driven by what Anderson (1983) calls the myth that “the universities were essentially ‘British’ institutions which could not survive, or at least maintain their international repute, without the bounty dispensed by the UGC” (p. 293). Is it telling that universities, some 20 years later, went along quietly with devolution and the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament, perhaps a sign of how the UK-wide higher education sphere had shifted under
83 nearly two decades of Conservative rule. In any event, under the terms of the Scotland Act, 1998, control over education was devolved to the new Scottish Parliament. For the first time since the Act of Union, the tools to advance - or to ignore - the historical Scottish tradition of higher education were once again the hands of Scottish voters. In fairly short order, these new powers began a partial “reversal of the twentieth-century pattern of convergence” (Keating, 2005, p. 427).
Forces of Divergence
Devolution and Distinction, 1999-2014
Higher education policy - and specifically policy relating to tuition fees - quickly became a defining issue for the new Scottish Parliament. In 1996, one year before the Devolution referendum, the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education was struck “to make recommendations on how the purposes, shape, structure, size and funding of higher education, including support for students, should develop to meet the needs of the United Kingdom over the next 20 years” (Dearing, 1997, p. 1). Often called the Dearing Report - after its Chairman, civil servant Sir Ron Dearing - it made 93 recommendations concerning the future of the UK’s higher education system, making it the most significant review of the sector since Robbins. However, for the purposes of Scottish higher education, the most political recommendation was the introduction of tuition fees “of around 25 per cent of the average cost of higher education tuition,” and a new scheme of income-contingent student loans (Dearing, 1997, p. 380). Robbins had left the door open to such a policy with his reference to “the arguments of justice in distribution and of the advantage of increasing individual responsibility,” and Dearing walked through it. The Dearing Report had been commissioned by John Major’s Conservative government, which was replaced when the new Labour government of Tony Blair swept into power in 1997. But Blair’s government accepted many of Dearing’s recommendations, most significantly the introduction of a £1,000 tuition fee and the income-contingent loan repayment system, in the Teaching and Higher Education Act, 1998. This act preceded the Scotland Act by four months, so the new fee was instituted at Scottish universities just prior to Devolution. This policy faced opposition across the UK, but was particularly unpopular among Scottish students and their families. The Scottish undergraduate degree was still four years long, in contrast with the three-year bachelor’s degree offered by universities in
84 England and Wales. As such, the new policy meant a typical university degree would cost £4,000 in Scotland, and only £3,000 in England (Court, 2004). Beyond the practical cost, many felt the tuition fee was an attack on the welfare state and the Scottish tradition of democratic access. The outcry was such that the first Scottish government – a coalition between the Scottish Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats – could only be formed when Labour agreed to establish a committee to examine the issue. The report of this committee, known as the Cubie Report, recommended the elimination of the up-front fee, and the creation of a “graduate endowment scheme” (Cubie, 2000). Essentially a graduate tax, this new arrangement saw graduates pay a fixed fee (£2,289 for students who began their degree in 2007, the last intake under the scheme) through repayments geared to their income. Introduced in 2000, this policy represents the first major point of divergence between devolved Scotland and England. Commenting on the graduate endowment scheme, then-Minister for Enterprise and Learning Jim Wallace claimed the policy “sends a strong signal that our higher education system is one of open access to students of all backgrounds” (Scottish Executive, 2003). This comment is interesting for two reasons: it acknowledges the existence of a system of higher education distinct from the rest of the United Kingdom, and makes an explicit connection to the idea that Scottish universities are committed to equal access. Scottish policy divergence on university tuition fees has since only become more dramatic. McGarvey and Cairney (2008) describe tuition fees as a “flagship issue” for the Scottish Parliament (p. 205), while Viebrock (2009) observes that the Scottish government has “used the freedom created by devolution to clearly diverge from Westminster policy” on the student finance file (p. 423). In 2004, the UK government introduced new “top-up fees” of up to £3,000 and an enhanced income-contingent student loan repayment scheme. The Scottish government held the line, preserving the graduate endowment scheme, albeit with a lower income threshold for repayment (£10,000, down from £25,000). Following the election of the SNP minority government in 2007, the graduate endowment scheme was abolished, and university attendance was made effectively free for Scottish students. In many respects, this was the decisive break between Scottish and (primarily) English policy on tuition fees. Since 2007, rest-of-UK policy has been accelerating in the other direction. As a result of recommendations contained within the Browne Report – another government commission on the future of universities – the tuition fee cap is now been set at £9,000 for universities in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (Browne, 2010). While university remains free for Scottish students, universities in Scotland charge other UK students to attend, often up to the
85 £9,000 cap. Due to the European Union requirement that EU students be treated the same as domestic students for the purposes of fees, individuals from EU member states also study for free in Scotland. As a result, beginning in 2011, a student from Germany paid nothing to attend a Scottish university, while a student from Berwick-Upon-Tweed - less than 100km from Edinburgh - paid full freight. Politicians in the UK have described this policy as “vindictive” and “illegal”, and the National Union of Students even accused the Scottish Parliament of “erecting a new Hadrian’s Wall” (Paton, 2011). While the dimensions of this growing divergence are clear, the question remains: why have tuition fees become the site of such difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK? One reason is surely a question of timing and opportunity; the re-introduction of tuition fees was a significant political issue at the time of the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament, which found itself with the devolved authority to make policy in this area. More than this, it was also an immediate opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to demonstrate its distinctiveness from Westminster. As Riddell (2016a) notes, “Scotland’s higher education system plays a major role in the formation of national identity, and the assertion of difference from systems operating in the rest of the UK, particularly England” (p. 1). The combination of timing, opportunity and a desire to differentiate explains the initial policy divergence- between a modest tuition fee in the UK and a graduate endowment in Scotland. But explaining the dramatic elimination of tuition fees altogether, and the maintenance of that policy in the face of fee increases in the rest of the UK, requires an additional variable - an independence movement that seeks to connect visions of Scottish identity to support for an independent Scotland, through the use of public policy. Indeed, the “elimination of up‐front university tuition fees and the personal long‐term care programme for the elderly represent policy choices falling squarely into the recent trajectory of Scottish nationalism” (Béland & Lecours, 2008, p. 140). As described in previous chapters, without strong cultural, linguistic, or ethnic differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK, public policy is a key arena in which to contest Scottish independence. As Béland and Lecours (2005) note, in Scotland, “the absence of hard cultural markers also makes it more likely that nationalism will be policy focused” (p. 698). In this context, higher education policy is a powerful tool for Scottish nationalists by virtue of its ability function as social policy, economic policy, and to advance a set of institutions with inherent nation building capabilities. The longstanding idea that Scottish higher education is distinct in regard to its openness and egalitarian commitment allows policy that addresses this idea – such as free tuition fees – to resonate with the belief in, and
86 the possibilities of, a distinct Scottish nation. As the differences in tuition fee policy between Westminster and the Scottish Parliament become starker, the distinctiveness of the Scottish system is reinforced, as is the idea that independence, or at least greater autonomy, is required to preserve this unique commitment to access. The continued movement of the UK towards a high-tuition fee funding regime has provided the SNP government with an extraordinary opportunity to use the student fee issue as a nationalist wedge. This outcome is largely predicted by the nationalism-social policy nexus model. As Béland & Lecours (2008) note,
Sub‐state social programmes may be interpreted by nationalist leaders as reflecting and embodying distinct national values, priorities, and even character. As such, they can be framed as a symbol of nationhood. This is especially true when these programmes diverge from their state‐level equivalents” (p. 23).
The survival of the idea that Scotland possesses a distinct higher education tradition makes this policy area even more appealing to nationalists. While frequently overshadowed by the Robbins reforms and the interventions of the Thatcher years, the idea of Scottish distinctiveness has been surprisingly durable. Writing in the midst of the Robbins expansion, Neave & Cowper (1979) observed:
Most Scotsmen, be they nationalist sympathizers or no, have always been aware of such differences in the structure, pedagogy, and the assumptions underlying their post school education system. The rise of nationalist movements provided a new medium for an otherwise old message—namely, that by their ethos, history, and structures, several systems of higher education exist within an apparently unitary framework (p. 7).
The idea that Scotland’s universities had been ill-used in Union, and that a Scottish Parliament was needed to protect them, also has a long historical pedigree. Scottish Home Rule advocates - a spinoff of the Home Rule movement in Ireland and the precursor of the modern nationalists - were making this point in the late 19th century. W.A. Hunter, a Home Rule Member of Parliament for Aberdeen, noted during the debate around the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889:
“[The Westminster] Parliament has been a cruel stepmother to the Scotch Universities. If we had had a Home Rule parliament, we should not have starved our higher education and stunted its growth” (as quoted in Anderson, 1983, p. 266).
In an 1885 rectoral address at St. Andrew’s University, Donald James Mackay, 11th Lord Reay, observed:
87 The chief wealth of Scotland consists in the natural resources of Scottish brains. The development of brain-power on a wide scale is what a Scottish statesman has to look to. If we had a Scottish Parliament sitting in Edinburgh, I have no doubt that the organization of the Universities would be the first number on the legislative program (as quoted in Anderson, 1983, p. 269).
Lord Reay’s comments are particularly prescient, as they anticipate the zeal with which the new Scottish Parliament was to take up the tuition fee issue post-Devolution. The idea that Scottish universities would be better served by local political control continued into the pre-war period. In 1907, Principal of St. Andrews Sir James Donaldson wrote in Home Rule and Scottish Education, “the control of the Scottish Universities, so far as control is advantageous, should be in the hands not of a British, but of a Scottish Parliament” (as quoted in Anderson, 1983, p. 290). These three examples illustrate the long history of the notion that British - and particularly English - control of university policy was viewed as an alien and harmful imposition. In this sense, the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament with authority over higher education appears almost as the fulfillment of prophecy, at least from one political viewpoint. It is therefore not surprising that higher education is a focus of the SNP’s push towards independence. As Arnott and Ozga (2010) point out, “education policy is a key area for the SNP because it combines the central, inescapable focus on the economy…with the key principles of fairness that references embedded ideas of national identity” (p. 343). Beginning in 2007 with the elimination of the graduate endowment scheme, the SNP attempted to make an explicit link between these “embedded ideas of national identity” and their own policies. Fiona Hyslop, Education Secretary in the Scottish Executive, described the policy in this way:
We believe access to education should be based on ability to learn, not ability to pay. Today's removal of the graduate endowment fee is great news for current and future students and last year's graduates, helping to significantly reduce their debt burden (Scottish Government, 2008).
The phrase “the ability to learn, not ability to pay” is a powerful appeal to the idea of the lad o’pairts—that it is talent and motivation, not class or wealth, that should determine success and meritocratic advancement. The focus on higher education has continued throughout the SNP’s term in government and in the run up to the referendum vote in 2014. The no-fee policy is a centerpiece of the SNP’s plan for an independent Scotland, outlined in the keystone policy
88 document laying out their vision for an independent nation, titled Scotland’s Future. This white paper draws on the idea of a distinct Scottish tradition by suggesting that “Scotland has been a world education leader since the early 15th century” (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 196). It goes on to position the no-fee policy as part of this tradition, and as an important Scottish value, stating “free education for those able to benefit from it is a core part of Scotland’s educational tradition and the values that underpin our educational system” (p. 197). Scotland’s Future is also careful to point out the economic importance of higher education. As predicted by the nationalism-social policy nexus, the SNP is clearly using the tuition fee policy to connect its independence project with notions of Scottish identity, and to build confidence in the SNP as managers of a new, prosperous nation. Free tuition policies come at a cost: tuition fee revenue must be replaced by public funding, and the no-fee policy risks putting Scottish universities at a competitive disadvantaged to their counterparts in the south if the overall level of per-student funding falls behind. English universities can draw upon tuition fee revenue to fund their activities, while Scottish institutions are limited to public dollars, constrained by years of austerity budgets and competing public priorities. The SNP has rejected the austerity programs of successive UK governments, but is nevertheless bound by them. A significant proportion of funding for Scotland’s devolved responsibilities is calculated through a mechanism called the Barnett Formula, whereby “the Scottish Government’s block grant in any given financial year is equal to the block grant baseline plus a population share of changes in UK Government spending on areas that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament” (Scottish Government, 2019). In other words, an increase or decrease in expenditure in England on policy areas devolved to the Scottish Parliament will lead to a proportionate increase or decrease in Scotland’s block grant. In 2019, for example, changes in spending by the UK government led to a £2 billion decrease in the grant received by Scotland (Scottish Government, 2019). The SNP is therefore continuing to pursue its free-tuition policy against a background of financial restraint. To keep universities whole, it has been suggested that the Scottish Government has diverted money from other areas of the higher education sector through deep cuts to the further education colleges (Raffe, 2016, p. 23) and by provision of financial aid for student living costs less generous than elsewhere in the UK (Hunter-Blackburn, 2014). Both of these claims will be examined in detail in later chapters. For now, it is enough to say that the Scottish Government - lacking flexibility in its financial arrangements with the UK and struggling with austerity budgeting - has opted to pursue a very expensive funding policy in its higher education sector. This suggests that higher education policymaking in Scotland is
89 being driven, at least in part, by non-financial considerations. It is important to note that the “public myth” of Scottish higher education - that it was more open, more egalitarian and more democratic than arrangements in England - did not, at least in its original historical conception, have much to say about the cost of higher education. That is, the question of the existence of tuition fees, or the provision of free higher education, was never a real feature of the myth or a source of any significant controversy in the Scottish tradition, particularly during the 19th century when the broad contours of the Scottish higher education tradition were being defined. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, students in Scotland paid for their university education. They may have paid less than their counterparts at Oxford and Cambridge, but tuition fees were still very much a part of their experience. The democratic egalitarianism of the Ancient Universities in the 19th century had more to do with their relationship to the parish and burgh schools, their relative open admissions policy and their embrace of a generalist academic curriculum than free tuition, with the possible exception of the Aberdeen bursary competition. It is therefore interesting that the cost of higher education should become, in both the Scottish National Party’s policy and ideology, a significant differentiating characteristic between England and Scotland. In effect, the SNP has taken the language and ideals of a distinct Scottish tradition and married it to a novel policy plank- that higher education should be free to all qualified students. The free tuition policy has more in common with the Robbins Principle - an ideal birthed in the UK’s welfare state - than a historical Scotland. The Scottish Government may also be pushing towards a restoration of another element of the historical Scottish tradition of higher education, although they would be unlikely to describe it in those terms. One of the consequences of Devolution in 1998 was that the Scottish higher education sector suddenly became much closer to government. Whereas the Scottish universities and colleges had previously been one part of a very large system, they were now the only part of a much smaller policy space. As Raffe (2016) observes, devolution had three consequences: universities were suddenly much more visible to government, expectations were higher and the sector as a whole became more politically salient under Devolution, as demonstrated by the tuition fee file. Together, these outcomes have put pressure on the autonomy of the Scottish institutions. In 2011, the Scottish Government established a panel, led by then-principal of Robert Gordon University, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, to examine higher education governance. The panel’s report, delivered in 2012 and using language recognizable to any 19th century Scottish university proponent, outlines the essential public nature of the institutions and their
90 accountability to both government and citizens. Indeed, the report quotes 19th century Scottish metaphysician Sir William Hamilton at length:
[A] University is a trust confided by the state to certain hands for the common interest of the nation…a University may, and ought, by the state to be from time to time corrected, reformed or recast…looking towards an improved accomplishment of its essential ends (Review of Higher Education Governance, 2012, p. 1).
While acknowledging the importance of institutional autonomy, von Prondzynski’s panel notes that, “autonomy needs to be seen alongside the legitimate public interest in their integrity and the effectiveness of their mission” (p. 1). The report recommended a variety of reforms to university governance that would see greater representation of students, staff, faculty and members of the wider community on governing bodies (called University Courts at the Ancient Universities and some of the newer institutions, while most of the younger institutions refer to them by the more familiar Boards of Governors). Many of these recommendations were contained in the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Bill, a controversial piece of legislation which provoked significant criticism from the universities over its perceived attack on their autonomy. Ultimately, the Bill, in a modified form, passed in 2016. Here, we can perhaps see a reassertion of the old idea of localness and public service, once an important element of the Scottish tradition. While not making any reference to the Scottish tradition, the SNP government is nevertheless seeking to more closely align the institutions with the (sub-)state. It is interesting that the universities should find this so uncomfortable, given the history of the sector. As suggested earlier in this chapter, decades of integration within the UK’s higher education policy framework has perhaps left them with British, rather than historically Scottish, notions of the relationship between state and university. Disagreements over governance and autonomy aside, it is widely acknowledged that the Scottish universities have done well in the post-Devolution era. As Raffe (2016) suggests, this is the upside of the institutions’ sudden closeness to government- they have managed to use the much smaller and more familiar Scottish public policy space to their benefit and have become an effective political force. They are also seen to be a national success story and asset, which enhances their political clout. Like most universities around the world, they are increasingly competing in a global arena for both prestige and students, and it is widely believed that excessive state interference would compromise their ability to succeed at the international level. In the post-Devolution era, internationalization remains an important force
91 for convergence within the UK. Instead of aligning Scottish institutions with a UK policy sphere, all UK institutions are pursuing success in international rankings. As well as increasing institutional prestige and profile, favourable rankings translate into enhanced international faculty and student recruitment, the latter of which is now an important source of revenue for Scottish institutions. In 2004-05, 4.7 per cent of students studying at Scottish higher education institutions were from the EU, while 8.5 per cent were non-EU international students. By 2008, these percentages had risen to 6.3 and 11.1 respectively (HESA, 2010). In 2013-2014, the academic year prior to the independence referendum vote, the proportions were 8.6 per cent EU and 12.4 per cent international. The comparable figures for England were 5.2 per cent and 13.8 per cent (HESA, 2015). The change in the Scottish figures between 2004 and 2013 represent a proportional increase of 83 per cent and 46 per cent in a decade- an impressive, but by no means unique, pattern of growth. There are at least two interesting stories in this data. The first is the high rate of increase in EU students studying in Scottish universities, and the greater overall proportion of EU students in Scottish institutions compared to English ones. One explanation for this is that EU students are taking advantage of free tuition fees in Scotland, rather than pay £9,000 in English institutions. The rise of non- EU international students is easier to understand, as it is driven by the financial imperatives of the institutions. Students from outside of the EU pay full fees in Scotland, and are therefore a growing revenue stream for institutions that have no flexibility on tuition fees for domestic students. The steadily rising proportion of non-EU international students in Scotland suggests that Scottish universities are increasingly dependent on this source of income. The recruitment of international students has also become a point of contention between the Scottish Government and the UK. In the pre-referendum period, the UK government pursued increasingly strict immigration requirements, and the SNP government has indicated it is “extremely concerned about the damaging impact that UK Government immigration policies, including changes to student visa rules” is having on the ability to recruit international students and researchers (Scottish Government, 2013). There is also a strong regional emphasis in the internationalization of Scottish higher education students, through the UK’s membership in the European Union (up until 2020). This is seen not only in the significant and rising proportion of EU students studying in Scottish institutions, but also in the emergence of a European higher education sphere. In 1999, the United Kingdom was one of the first participants in the Bologna Process, an initiative to create a harmonized European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on “common key values– such as freedom of expression, autonomy for institutions, independent
92 student unions, academic freedom, free movement of students and staff” (EHEA, 2020). The ultimate goal of the Bologna Process is to facilitate staff and student mobility and employability by aligning quality assurance mechanisms and academic standards. The formalization of the EHEA creates another set of external standards, until recently applicable to all UK higher education institutions, that drives convergence from outside of Scotland’s borders. In a sense, the nature of contemporary internationalization is an update and expansion of an older trend towards convergence across state boundaries- the rise of specialization and disciplinarity within universities around the world. Davie (1961, 1986) viewed the emphasis upon disciplines and specialization within the university degree as contrary to the Scottish tradition, and describes how champions of the general and academic nature of Scottish education viewed the drive towards increased specialization by certain reformers as an attempt to impose English academic values. As detailed by Polanyi (1962), Jencks & Riesman (1968), Lazerson (2010) and others, specialization was not limited to English universities but became a defining trend in academia around the world. The ascendant disciplines increased the professional authority of professors, giving them “intellectual authority as they searched for new knowledge, trained graduate students, and shaped the undergraduate curriculum” (Lazerson, 2010, p. 115). This trend was perhaps most pronounced in the sciences, where “scientists, freely making their ow choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment are in fact cooperating as members of a closely knit organization” (Polanyi, 1962, p. 54). In Polanyi’s (1962) view, this “Republic of Science” was increasingly international in scope and orientation. As the 20th century progressed, scholars therefore came to identify strongly with their own academic disciplines as the sources of both professional credibility and power within their host institutions. The norms of these disciplines consequently had a significant effect on the nature of universities, well beyond local traditions or the policies of national governments. Thus, even before the rise of international league tables and the competition for overseas students, Scottish universities were subject to a strong force towards alignment with their international peer institutions, driven from within the universities themselves. Research funding in Scotland also continues to operate as a force for convergence, as it remains largely UK-wide in the post-Devolution era. Funding in Scotland is delivered through what the Scottish Government (2014) describes as a “dual support” model which contains both devolved and reserved (to Westminster) elements. While Scotland’s universities participate in the REF, the funding awarded through that process is allocated to the Scottish
93 Funding Council. The Council is accountable to the Scottish Parliament and follows general policy directives set by the Scottish Government. In 2012-13, the year prior to the Independence Referendum, this hybrid central/devolved funding amounted to £330 million, or 34 per cent of total research expenditure in Scotland. The UK’s research councils, accountable to the central UK state and with a UK-wide remit, spent £242 million, or nearly 25 per cent of the total, in Scottish universities. The large UK medical charities accounted for 13 per cent of research funding, with the EU contributing slightly over eight per cent. While the dual support model does provide the Scottish Government some flexibility in funding national priorities, most universities and policymakers would describe research funding as a UK concern, with much collaboration occurring across and between the four home nations. Against the backdrop of increasing policy divergence on the tuition fee file, Scotland’s higher education sector has continued to develop and expand. In addition to ongoing growth in student numbers, two more institutions were given university status in 2007 and 2011: Queen Margaret University and the University of the Highlands and Islands. By the time the SNP formed its first majority government, the university sector had grown to include 15 universities, 41 further education colleges, and a few surviving central institutions (such as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). This array of institutions constitutes a relatively large sector considering Scotland’s population of 5.3 million. As Scotland entered the campaign leading up to the 2014 Independence Referendum, the nation’s higher education sector was mature, successful and a significant area of political concern and public pride. Devolution had not overturned a century of convergence where Scottish universities accommodated themselves to the requirements of the UK state and, more recently, the principles of the EHEA and the vagaries of international competition. Instead, Devolution provided the new Scottish Parliament and Government with the tools to chart their own course in terms of higher education policy. They have used these powers to draw a sharp line between Scotland and England in terms of student finance, and this distinction has only deepened as the Scottish National Party has sought to convince Scottish voters on the necessity of independence. Writing in 2008, Béland & Lecours note that, “the prospect for both social policy and constitutional divergence would be the greatest in the case of an SNP Scottish Executive facing a Conservative government in Westminster, a scenario which, if it were to happen, could very well be a defining period for the Union and the British welfare state” (p. 142). Following the UK general election in 2010, this is precisely what occurred. In fact, the actual events go well beyond the scenario imagined by the authors- not only did a SNP government in Edinburgh face a Conservative government in Scotland, but the leaders of the
94 two parties agreed that a referendum should be held, the ultimate test of the SNP’s nationalist project. As we will see, higher education policy played a significant, though not central, role in the campaign around the 2014 vote. How higher education policy was used in the run up to the Independence Referendum - and its effectiveness as a tool of political persuasion and motivation - will be explored in the following chapters.
95 7. Validating the Scottish Tradition, Past and Present
The previous chapters explored how a historical conception of a distinct Scottish higher education tradition was established and how it has been recently mobilized within the modern nationalist movement in Scotland. The connection between higher education and the Scottish National Party’s political program has helped drive the significant policy divergence between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom on student tuition fees and finance following Devolution in 1998. While Scottish universities and further education colleges continue to operate in a UK-wide policy context with increasingly international dimensions, tuition fee policy is a marker of the nationalism-social policy nexus in action: a sub-state region with an active nationalist movement using social policy to make an argument for political distinctiveness and to support calls for further autonomy and outright independence from the central state. With this observation in mind, we return to the central question of this project - whether, and how, higher education policy played a role in the Independence Referendum campaign. Given the use of higher education policy by the Scottish National Party in the years prior to the campaign, and the rhetoric they have deployed around this policy area, it was reasonable to expect that higher education policy would be an active area of the debate. To assess if this was true, and, if so, how higher education policy was used, we turn now to the key informant interviews and content analysis undertaken as part of this project. As described in chapter two, I will be referring to respondents by their general category and their location relative to the Scottish higher education sector (e.g. “academic, ancient university). Where a respondent requested anonymity, I refer to them as “anonymous respondent.” The following discussion is divided into two parts. The first explores how respondents understand the historical tradition of Scottish higher education and its relationship with Scottish identity, and their thoughts on how various political actors used this policy area in service of their electoral objectives. Attention is also briefly paid to critiques directed at the free-tuition policy, to explore how the policy functions at a political level. This chapter also examines whether higher education policy is an effective political motivator in the Scottish context. The second part of the analysis, contained in the following chapter, examines the actual manifestation of higher education policy in the debate, and some of the underlying policy issues and political dynamics that were exposed as the campaign progressed.
96 The Political Significance of Higher Education Policy in Scotland
Views on the Distinctiveness of Scottish Higher Education
Overall, respondents acknowledged the existence of a distinct historical tradition of higher education in Scotland, but were divided on whether this tradition remained meaningful in the modern context. When questioned about the characteristics of this tradition, respondents were likely to first reference the differences in curriculum, then the emphasis on access and equity, and then the greater connection between the universities, their local communities and the state. The immediate focus on curriculum is likely due to the fact that this difference persists in a visible way, as Scottish degrees continue to include four years of study, while degrees in the rest of the UK are only three. Said one respondent:
I mean the most obvious example is the four-year degree. Obviously, we have an approach where students tend to have an opportunity through their first year to get a bit of a taste of perhaps a range of subjects and ease themselves into university life rather more easily than is the case with a three-year degree where you’re pretty much up and running immediately (politician, Scottish Liberal Democrats).
Also contained within this quotation is an echo of the general or more academic nature of the Scottish curriculum, rooted in the study of philosophy, once a cherished feature of Scottish universities set apart from English specialization. Belief in this broader curriculum as a distinct feature of the Scottish system was repeated among many respondents, notably in the ranks of senior administrators:
So Scotland… it keeps a breadth of studies going well into the university cycle, so the first and second year people are doing more than one subject, because it’s a four year degree. And I think if you go back further, into the time of the Enlightenment, and that kind of thing, then education was provided by, originally through the church, and then philosophy became very strong. There was a strong philosophic base and a connection to Europe, without going through England. So relative to the UK, it is distinctive in those ways (senior university administrator, ancient university).
It would be much more accessible and inclusive. It would involve a broad-based component. In this university in the 16th century, they took essentially the Paris curriculum, which meant you did a couple of years of philosophy, and then you specialized. And essentially the Scottish four-year degree is a very particular sort of thing. There is a broad-based part, then a more specialized part. So it’s quite different from the English degree (principal, ancient university).
Respondents were also highly likely to identify a greater emphasis on access and equity
97 as an important part of the Scottish tradition:
I mean, there is an idea in Scotland that education is a democratic institution that does indeed allow anybody with ability to progress, and that in some sense or another, whereas university education in England is, you know, traditionally dominated by Oxbridge, a few other elite universities, it’s a very elitist institution. In Scotland, there is always this idea that actually allowed anyone from anywhere, who has the ability, will be able to, right? (academic, Robbins university).
A smaller subset of participants linked the historical emphasis an access to the lad o’pairts, or the idea that talented young people of limited means had the ability to advance through the integration of the parish schools and the universities. Interestingly, individuals with public positions on either side of the independence debate made reference to the lad o’pairts ideal, suggesting that this particular ideal is not attached to any particular position on Scotland’s membership in the UK. As one pro-Union respondent put it:
There’s the tradition of the poor lad from the farm going to university, making his own way in the world and making a professional career. The lad o’pairts, this tradition in Scotland. It did happen down South as well, but perhaps through a different route. Up here it happened through things like, Aberdeen had a bursary competition, the bursaries weren’t very big, but you could live off your bursary. You probably weren’t going to get a sack of potatoes, and all that kind of stuff. And long traditions, actually in reality and also in literature as well, novels written about that kind of thing. So that’s always been there as a tradition, that in Scotland it was easier for someone who didn’t have any kind of financial or political links to get into the higher education system and advance their careers that way (academic, Academics Together).
Compare that to comments made by an avid pro-Independence campaigner, and one can get a sense of the consistency of this idea across political positions:
And that idea that the lad o’pairts, if you are bright it doesn’t mean if you were born with a plough in your hand or you were born with a sword, that you are — that Scotland is a place where you will achieve that, that’s important. Kind of meritocracy before meritocracy and not neoliberal meritocracy, that kind of liberal artsy type of meritocracy. That’s strong and that’s important (pro-independence campaigner).
Fewer respondents emphasized George Elder Davies’ (1961) concept of the Democratic Intellect, but it was still notable in the data. The idea is that the Scottish education system’s emphasis on academic study at all levels, as opposed to the specialization and “streaming” found in other jurisdictions, created a pathway into university for students from a variety of backgrounds which in turn democratized higher learning within the population. Said one
98 academic:
And it - I am convinced that there is something, or has been anyway, something distinctive about the Scottish higher education tradition in the sense that, although it's partly mythical, this notion of - of the Democratic Intellect if you like, or the idea that people from relatively humble backgrounds can be admitted to Scottish universities and that goes way back to medieval times (academic, Robbins University).
There have been periodic calls for the restoration of traditional Scottish intellectual values within Scotland’s universities through a renewed conception of a generalist, liberal arts degree as the basic unit of a university education (for example, Walker, 1994). So far, these calls have not generated much – if any – curricular change. One university president observed that the Democratic Intellect ideal did not govern the day-to-day activities within the institutions, but instead helped shape public expectations of the system.
But there is at least a case to be made for saying that there is a tradition of Scottish higher education which probably owes something to the Scottish Enlightenment and the ideas that flow from that. Society, or at least that part of society that’s particularly interested in universities and what they do, feels a sense of commitment to that and it has some influence on the way people think about higher education….it is more something that influences people who comment on it from outside. And maybe more accurately, who express expectations of it from outside. So people who look at universities and ask what they can do for society, and set out principles for that (principal, Post-92 University).
In terms of the lad o’pairts, the Democratic Intellect and access to higher education generally, respondents agreed that these characteristics were part of the historical tradition of Scottish higher education, but many also expressed some skepticism as to whether the supposed greater openness of Scotland’s universities reflected an on-the-ground reality or if it was somewhat mythical.
Although, if you look at say, Aberdeen…somebody looked at exactly where did the students come from in terms of social background in the 19th century. And they tended to come from relatively wealthy farmers, or Kirk ministers, and the doctors. There was a sprinkling of people who had no kind of social advantage at all, in terms of their income. But not perhaps as many as the folklore would suggest. It doesn’t rule out that kind of traditions as being a real one, but it was probably less important than, you’d have to look at the data (academic, Academics Together).
Scotland has always liked to have this myth of the lad o’pairts- it doesn’t matter if you come from a poor background, you can still progress to the highest offices of the land. But of course, the class system exists in Scotland just as much as in the rest of
99 the UK, so I think you always have to take these aspects of national imagery with some degree of skepticism” (academic, ancient university).
Respondents also expressed doubt as to whether Scottish universities were any more equitable than their English counterparts in the modern context.
If you were to look at them equally, but by the mid-20th century that idea, you had the Robbins revolution, you’ve had huge university expansion south of the Border as well as north, that whole idea that we’re dramatically different in the social composition of our universities. If it was ever true, it looks a bit dated frankly (former civil servant).
Data on the socio-economic origin of Scottish university students on the 19th century - where the egalitarian conceptions of the system arose - is very limited. It is thus difficult to determine whether the lad o’pairts was a widespread phenomenon, or the aspirational invention of contemporary observers enamoured with the putatively accessible nature of Scottish universities. By far the most comprehensive examination of this topic, R.D. Anderson’s Education and Opportunity in Victorian Scotland (1983) finds mixed evidence for the equitable nature of Scottish universities. In the 1860s, about 80 per cent of university Arts students were the sons (and more rarely, daughters) of ministers, lawyers, doctors and teachers (p. 152). The remaining 20 per cent were the children of “manual” workers, everything from well-to-do farmers to labourers and farm servants. There were significant disparities within this group, with the children of artisans (masons, blacksmiths, shoemakers, etc.) being five to six times more likely to be enrolled in a university arts course as those of labourers (Ibid, p. 153). Still, 20 per cent representation from manual or working class backgrounds is a notable achievement for the 19th century, and this figure “shows without doubt that the universities were serving a wide range of the community” (Ibid., p. 149). T.C. Smout (1986), in his somewhat inaccurately named A Century of the Scottish People, 1830- 1950, takes a more skeptical view, observing that into the 20th century, Scottish education was “a matter of low social priority once the perceived needs of the middle class had been attended to, and once a channel had been opened up for a limited number of working-class children to use secondary school and university as a means of upward social mobility” (p. 223). In other words, it was important to Scottish society that the value of open access to universities was observed in a token sense, but there was no corresponding drive to truly open up enrolment to the children of the working class. A 1938 study of entrants to the University of Glasgow bears out this observation. In the post-WWI period of 1926-1935:
100 There was roughly one entrant to every 20 children born in Social Class 1 [professional]; in Social Class 2 [artisan] the figure was one in 212; and in the lowest Social Class it was one in 550 … Whereas in Social Class 1 the number of children born per entrant for law was on the order of 200 to one, in the lowest social class this ratio was on the order of 20,000 to one. In the case of medicine these ratios were approximately 70 to one and 6,000 to one (Collier, 1938, p. 276).
While Scotland may have done comparatively well in the number of working-class students admitted to university, the proportion of these individuals lagged significantly behind the middle- and upper-classes. Although declining in size by the early 20th century, the working class was still larger than other socio-economic groups, so these disparities are even larger in relative terms. The view that its universities were more accessible across classes than those in England, and that this achievement in turn produced a more literate and equitable society, remains widespread in Scotland. As Keating (2005) and Shattock (2007) observe, Scotland has historically had a greater postsecondary participation rate than the rest of the UK. The Robbins Report found that 35 per cent of Scottish university students came from a working class background, compared to 29 per cent in the rest of the UK and just eight to 10 per cent in Oxford and Cambridge (Neave, 1976, p. 133). If we define “openness” as the number of places available per unit of population, Scotland also had a clear advantage prior to the Robbins expansion. Neave (1976) finds that Scotland had more than double the spaces per 10,000 citizens - 42.2 compared to 18.2 in England and Wales (p. 133). While the Robbins expansion narrowed this gap, Scotland still had 43 per cent more spaces per 10,000 citizens by 1970. During the 1990s and 2000s, another major expansionary period in UK higher education, the evidence of greater accessibility in Scotland was also mixed. Individuals from working- class backgrounds made steady gains in their relative representation within universities, but any previous advantage in the accessibility enjoyed by Scottish universities compared to English ones weakened. Paterson (1997), reviewing data from the Scottish School Leaver’s Survey between 1980 and 1994, found that the proportion of students whose fathers were in skilled manual, semi-skilled manual and unskilled manual occupations (an imperfect but serviceable proxy for membership in the working class) rose from four per cent to 15 per cent. In 1980, individuals whose fathers were in professional and managerial professions were nearly nine times more likely to attend university than their working-class peers. In 1994, the gap had narrowed to just over three times as likely. Using data from the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ianelli (2007) found that:
101 In absolute terms, working class students are better off in Scotland than the rest of Great Britain. In fact, they had a higher chance of entering HE in Scotland than their English and Welsh peers from the same social background (p. 318).
While ostensibly a validation of the historical Scottish traditions emphasis on access, this finding comes with some caveats. Ianelli (2007; Ianelli et al., 2011) suggests that a possible explanation for this higher level of working-class participation is the greater provision of higher education programming at Further Education Colleges in Scotland. As Ianelli et al. (2011) characterize it, there is greater opportunity in Scotland’s higher education system, but this opportunity is more apparent in the “lowest-status” institutions within the sector. This observation is significant when considering controversies around the treatment of further education colleges by the SNP government, a topic that will be discussed at length below. According to 2010-2011 data from the UK’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Scottish universities actually performed slightly worse than English universities in terms of the number of students from lower-income backgrounds admitted - 27 per cent as opposed to 31 per cent (Denholm, 2012). The Scottish institutions with the lowest proportion of lower-income students were also among the oldest- the ancient universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. This finding is surprising, given the historical emphasis on broad social access that developed in these institutions during the 18th and 19th centuries. Indeed, the myth of the lad o’pairts originated with the ancients and their relationship with the parochial schools. Croxford and Raffe (2014) pour more cold water on the idea of greater university access in Scotland. Examining the apparent policy divergence between market-oriented England and more socially democratic Scotland, they find:
that there is no evidence that the social democratic approach has generated greater equality or wider access than the market approach. Indeed, to the extent that there is any difference in trends it is probably in the other direction (p. 93).
In the post-Devolution era, it has become somewhat more complicated to compare relative performance on access for students from under-represented backgrounds between Scotland and the rest of the UK. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the UK’s primary collector of data on higher and further education, uses the Participation Of Local Areas (POLAR) indicator to measure access from disadvantaged areas, whereas the Scotland Funding Council uses the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). Any comparison is
102 thus not strictly apples-to-apples. However, according to the HESA data, in 2015, 11.1 per cent of English university entrants, and 13.7 per cent of Welsh entrants, were from the most disadvantaged POLAR group (HESA, 2018). In the same year, entry to universities from the most disadvantaged SIMD was 14.8 per cent (Scottish Funding Council, 2019). Again, caution is to be applied when comparing these figures, but they would appear to support the idea that Scottish universities are more accessible. However, drilling into this data reveals that in 2016 only 8.5 per cent of entrants to the ancient universities were from the most disadvantaged SIMD, compared to 12.6 and 14.6 per cent for the newer and post-92 institutions, respectively. By contrast, 23.2 per cent of entrants to the further education colleges were from the most disadvantage SIMD group (Scottish Funding Council, 2018). If the ancient universities were once the drivers of the lad o’pairts myth, their continued position as champions of that tradition now seems in doubt. There are likely several factors at work here- institutions in Scotland, Wales and England benefitted equally first from the Robbins expansion, and then from subsequent periods of enrolment growth. In practice, this meant that institutions across the UK have become more accessible. The access roles of older institutions may have been supplanted by younger institutions, many of which are described as “admitting” rather than “selecting” institutions. As the prestige of the ancient universities has increased over time, they have acquired the ability to take only the top-performing students. The number of secondary school graduates from lower-income backgrounds with the appropriate university entrance qualifications also plays a significant role in driving participation from disadvantaged communities. If the number is low, then there will simply not be the lower-income students to admit, particularly at institutions (like the Ancients) with higher entrance requirements. In addition, the particular manifestation of Scotland’s ostensible social democratic model of university funding - free tuition fees - may not be sufficient to provide its under-represented students with an access advantage compared to their peers in the south. In fact, as we shall see, the free fee policy may obscure other policies working against greater university access amongst disadvantaged communities. Those supportive of Scottish independence might also argue that these trends are the result of market-driven policies originating in England, and that independence would allow Scotland to make access a core value of the higher education system. The evidence for such claims, notwithstanding the free-tuition policy, remains somewhat scarce. On the final aspect of the historic Scottish tradition, respondents were generally aligned with the view that universities in Scotland saw themselves in the service of the broader
103 community, and citizens likewise felt some ownership over the institutions, regardless of whether they attended one. Said one university principal:
There was also in Scotland a real premium on civic engagement, being part of the community. Accessible, public lectures, people in the university being involved in the running of the city in all its guises, architectural, medical, social…If you ask a University of Edinburgh professor, what have you done for the city, they’ll give you an answer. If you ask a University of Oxford professor what have you done for the city, they would think it’s an odd question. What do you mean what have I done for the city? (principal, ancient university).
As the above quotation demonstrates, respondents typically defined the greater community focus of Scottish universities in contrast to attitudes in the rest of the UK, particularly England. These findings are consistent with earlier public opinion research on the attitudes of academics working within the Scottish university sector. Drawing from survey data of academics in Scotland and England, Paterson (2003a) found that there remained more support for a civic orientation to higher education in Scotland, and further argues that this difference has been preserved by the existence of a distinct national system of education in Scotland:
Thus academics in Scotland were more inclined than those in England to say that students should learn to contribute to the life of the community, and should learn how to challenge people in positions of authority. Academics in Scotland were also more inclined than those in England to believe that higher education should prepare its students to take on leading positions in government and business – whether that is in Scotland (a very clear contrast with government in the English regions) or, a weaker difference, at the UK level (p. 73).
Paterson also found that the majority of Scottish academics believed that universities should contribute to Scotland’s “national culture,” had a greater of level of support for access courses, and were more likely to emphasize “socially useful knowledge, especially for local and national economic development and for the commercialization of research” (2003a, pp. 76-79). For academics, long-term exposure to the higher education system also seems to have strengthened their attachment to Scottish identity. In particular, those that were educated within Scottish universities “are much more committed to a Scottish identity than to any other” (p. 89). Direct comparison between Scotland and England was a consistent theme across all interviews and over multiple thematic areas. As in the 19th century, the distinctiveness of Scottish universities is consistently understood in reference to arrangements in the south.
104 Consider these statements:
So I think universities have a particular place in Scottish society that perhaps isn’t mirrored in the rest of the UK….Certainly I think there is a public value placed on universities, and that’s a very good thing (policy director, university advocacy organization).
Everybody’s much closer to each other in Scotland than they are in England. So the kind of relationships in Scottish public and civic life are of a different order to the ones you get in the much larger countries like England. So, in that respect, the Scottish universities I think have remained more civic institutions. They are close to the communities of which they are part. And they feel it’s important that they are (academic, post-92 institution).
Several respondents made it clear that connection to the community was not just a historical artifact, and that universities continued to be important to the economic and social development of the nation:
They carry forward first of all, I suppose, in the most superficial way, our image of ourselves. We regard ourselves as a learning nation and that says Scotland has built its reputation. It believes, I think one could question part of that, and to that extent, the universities and the excellence of our universities, the global excellence of our universities carries that forward. But I think universities do much more than that. I think that the investment in higher education and in the individuals who go through higher education is an investment in the future of the country and the future health of the country” (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
It is not surprising that this statement was made by a SNP politician, as that party has positioned their university policies as both a link to Scotland’s past and a key component of their economic plans for the future. It is likely that Devolution had the result of making universities more “visible” to the Scottish Government (Raffe, 2016). This is a small-nation phenomenon, where small policy networks and close relationships between policymakers and institutional leaders creates a greater focus on both the needs and outputs of the system. Said one respondent:
And we are a smaller jurisdiction, the lines of communication are short, the Cabinet Secretary for Education knows all of the principals, even from the small specialist institutions, on first-name terms. That simply isn’t the case in England. That proximity is double-edged…. To produce a more directive relationship between government and universities. And that’s the other edge of the sword, if you like, because it’s great to hear the Scottish Government saying how wonderful and important universities are, but there may be a sense if they’re that important, they may want to tell us what to do.” (senior administrator, ancient university).
105 The “double-edged” nature of this relationship is that, while the SNP government has arguably protected universities through their funding policies, they have also pushed for greater accountability from the sector. In his review of performance and target-setting across the UK, Court (2004) found that, “the devolved administrations – especially in Scotland and Wales – want and expect more from ‘their’ higher education institutions” (p. 174). Similarly, Raffe (2016) observes, “devolution, by bringing Scottish universities closer to government, has both increased the political influence of higher education institutions, individually and collectively, and increased the perceived threats to institutional autonomy” (p. 25). Raffe identifies three ways in which Scotland’s particular circumstances tend to favour greater intervention by the state into the affairs of institutions. First, a smaller number of institutions (15, as opposed to over one hundred in England), creates close proximity that makes it difficult for institutions to hide. The buffering role played by the funding council becomes difficult to sustain, with a tripartite relationship emerging between government, the funding council and the institutions (Raffe, 2016, p. 26). Second, higher education policy becomes the focus of aspirational policymaking, where devolved administrations sought to “tailor policies that would better address the distinctive needs of each territory” (Ibid., p. 26). This desire creates a pressure for institutions to meet “tightly prescribed policy goals” (Tapper, 2007, p. 83). Finally, Raffe suggest that the politics of Devolution has brought higher education institutions closer to the Scottish Government. Simply put, education is “one of the most important policy areas to have been devolved,” and “tends to be highly valued in the devolved territories, where it is associated with national identity as well as with opportunities for social ascent” (Raffe, 2016, p. 27). While these forces tend to favour greater government intervention into the Scottish universities, Raffe also identifies three countervailing trends that put a check on government intrusion on institutional autonomy: the sense that the higher education sector is successful and an asset, and governments are reluctant to impinge on this record; the increasing internationalization of the universities, which imposes supra-national accountabilities on the sector; and the relative political effectiveness of the Scottish universities as a lobbying interest. On this last point, one respondent observed:
I mean we got a 20% real-terms increase in funding over two years, which just doesn’t happen. But that was because it was an easy-peasy lobbying campaign, “Scotland’s future lies in its universities and you’re fucking this up.” So we won quite a lot of money. The university sector rolled over and let its tummy be tickled quite a bit after that and was comfortable with that administration which ran over two administrations….We had to do it not by being likeable, but being invaluable….[For example] you could not have a vision for the future of the Scottish economy that did
106 not have biotech. And biotech is only in Scotland because of the excellence of the biotechnology research in the universities, so we had them because they needed us not because they liked us” (pro-independence campaigner).
This comment is reminiscent of Neave’s (2001) assertion that the relationship between higher education institutions and the state is structured by the type of knowledge that is deemed important at the time. The SNP government needs universities both for their economic impact and nation-building capacity, so must walk a fine line between demanding more accountability and respecting the autonomy of the institutions. The tension between government and universities has manifested itself in several ways over the past decade. Universities, as of 2012, are now required to sign outcome agreements with the Scottish Funding Council, setting broad goals on “access, innovation, research and graduate employability,” that are expressed in both national and institutional metrics. (Raffe, 2016, p. 24). These agreements are established in statute and are linked to funding. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Scottish Government, also in 2012, tasked Ferdinand Von Prondzynski with leading a review of higher education governance. The final report of this review laid out the basic principal that Scottish society had the right to expect certain things from its universities, observing:
Though a much smaller country in population than its neighbour in the south, Scotland has a proud record of intellectual engagement that rivals or perhaps even exceeds that of England (and certainly now differs from it). This intellectual tradition makes higher education an important element in the development of Scotland’s society, as it is also a vital part of its success as an economy. How the system of higher education is run, therefore, is a matter of legitimate concern to all (Review of Higher Education Governance, 2012, p. iv, my italics).
The Review of Higher Education Governance went on to propose a variety of governance reforms, including the requirement that the chairs of the university governing bodies be elected, “thus reflecting the democratic ideal of Scottish higher education” (p. 28). Many of the recommendations were brought forward in the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament in March of 2016. Under the new rules, the governing chairs will indeed be elected by the entire university community, and staff and students will have greater representation on governing bodies. Among respondents - who were commenting at least 18 months before the Act was passed - opinion on the legislation was divided, both in terms of the need for governance reform and whether or not the Scottish Government would push forward with its plans. Said one senior
107 administrator:
At the moment we assume nonsense will not be forthcoming, and people will back off. But there was a governance review by a guy who came from Dublin to be in Robert Gordon University up in Aberdeen and he loves it and the all other principals think it’s awful. So that’s where it rests (senior administrator, ancient university).
One academic commented:
There is an interesting little standoff between the universities and the government, with the government, I would say, and this is the perception of the principals I’ve talked to, trying to exert stronger control. And the universities trying to get them to back off, saying, hang on, we are autonomous institutions even though we get quite a large amount of state funding (academic, ancient university).
A university principal, supportive of the reforms, made this observation:
I think governments will always be aware of the potential significance and benefits of what higher education and university research can do. And since taxpayer money is being spent on it, it’s not unreasonable to ask what that is delivering. Universities cannot realistically say, well, just give us the money and it’s none of your business after. So, you have to accept that. But that doesn’t mean governments direct universities. It means they can make certain funds available with the intention that it be used for certain purposes (principal, post-92 institution).
All of this reiterates my earlier observation that the historically close connection between Scottish universities and the Scottish nation may be undergoing a manner of resurgence under Devolution. The Scottish Government believes that higher education institutions are important for the economic and social development of Scotland, and now have the legislative and policy levers to promote this vision. For universities, this has meant on the one hand a privileged status within government - they have been protected from austerity and, quite unusually, received significant funding increases. But this has meant that government has moved to articulate clear expectations for the sector and instituted reforms that impinge on the autonomy of the institutions. This autonomy is, in historical terms, more of a characteristic of the UK university sector. The Scottish institutions, used to the ideal of autonomy that prevailed throughout the 20th century, now chafe slightly against the idea that government should have more say in their operations. Overall, the interviews illustrated that the idea of a distinct Scottish tradition of higher education - and the components that make up that tradition - is both widespread and consistent within the university sector and its related policy spheres. Respondents often expressed doubt as to the veracity of the supposed achievements of this tradition, particularly
108 in terms of access and equity. Taken together, the interviews nevertheless demonstrate that the idea of Scottish distinctiveness continues to be a powerful one.
Scottish Higher Education and Identity
The question of Scottish identity and its relationship to higher education is complex to evaluate, not least because Scottish identity - as with many political identities around the world - is contested and unstable over time. The Scottish people have maintained many aspects of a distinct identity, but have also spent over 300 years enmeshed in the United Kingdom, carrying with it notions of “British” identity forged by a shared history of empire, war and an expansionary welfare state. The complexity of modern Scottish identity is illustrated by the following statement by one of the respondents:
We have multiple identities. I’m from the Highlands of Scotland, that’s an important part of my identity. I’m Scottish, that’s an important part. I’m from the British Isles. That is a fact. I’m from Western Europe, that’s an important fact. So a whole series of those complex values at different levels. I’m from the working class, that’s another part of my identity. So I tend to not want to privilege identity over other dimensions in policy (anonymous respondent).
Data consistently shows that Scottish identity is more powerful than other regional identities in the UK (ScotCen, 2018; Rosie & Bond, 2006). In other words, “being Scottish is more salient in Scotland than being English in England, or Welsh in Wales” (Rosie & Bond, 2006, p. 1). Data from the “What Scotland Thinks” project, conducted by ScotCen Social Research (2018), illustrates the significant shifts in Scottish identity over the past eight years.
109 Figure One Attachment to Scottish and British Identity, 2012-2018
Note: Data based on a series of public opinion polls conducted by YouGov.
As demonstrated by this graph, the absolute preference, “Scottish not British” peaked in March of 2014, six months before the referendum vote. The milder “More Scottish than British” has enjoyed a steady increase since the referendum, and is now the most-expressed identity statement, leading its closest competitor by 11 per cent. The category “More British than Scottish” has also increased since the Independence vote, but still lags well behind the Scottish-first categories. Overall, 57 per cent of residents in Scotland now privilege their Scottish identity, with another 23 per cent indicating that they feel equally Scottish and British. British-first identity preferences now only account for 16 per cent of the population. Still, as one respondent observed, it is important to recognize that individual identities always exist along a continuum and will almost certainly shift over time:
Certainly, most people in Scotland have a Scottish identity, but a large number of people in Scotland also have a British identity. And of course this varies across various demographics. So certainly older people are more likely to have a very strong British identity. People who come from other parts of the UK, who were not born in Scotland, and immigrants probably have a stronger British identity as well as a
110 Scottish identity. So it certainly wouldn’t be the case that people in Scotland only have a Scottish identity, it probably exists on a spectrum (anonymous respondent).
As to whether Scottish identity contains particular ideas about how universities look and operate, respondents were mixed in their views. Many identified universities as among the institutions that formed the basis of Scotland’s historic civic identity:
Hard to say that people say, “I’m Scottish and therefore I think in a particular way about higher education.” I don’t think you could say it is as overt as that. But Scottishness is quite interesting as a national identity in the way that it has been reproduced over centuries. And it hasn’t been reproduced through obvious ethnic difference, it hasn’t been reproduced in language, it has not been reproduced really through a national myth. A lot of people think of Mel Gibson as William Wallace, but that’s very far removed from what most people understand about Scotland. In other words, it’s not an inherent characteristic of people. It is something rather different, and we often call it “civic”, but I’m not sure if that gets to it properly. But something that has been reproduced by the existence of distinct institutions in Scotland, which have always provided a focal point for difference (senior administrator, ancient university).
After the Treaty of Union in 1707, Scotland maintained a distinct sense of identity in many civic aspects to do with its distinct education system, its distinct legal system, and its distinct churches in Scotland, as well. So I think the universities in Scotland were part of the bundle and distinctly Scottish civic institutions which were basically providing the foundational aspects of national identity in Scotland (academic, ancient university).
Conversely, respondents tended to express skepticism about whether modern Scottish identity preferences were connected to particular ideas about university policy:
I’ve not heard that sort of discourse, really… “I’m a Scot, therefore I think higher education should be more equitable.” It’s not the first thing people are going to think about. I think there would be a whole range of social services that would come before higher education, my guess would be. You’ve probably gathered that I’m English. I don’t encounter a huge amount of that stuff anyway, of people expressing this very strong Scottish identity. Certainly not within higher education, but even within student groups in particular (academic, ancient university).
If you asked someone what makes you feel Scottish, I don’t many people would say anything to do with higher education. I suppose some people might talk about the enlightenment, or that sort of thing. But I’m struggling to think of it being wrapped up in that sense (academic, Robbins university).
As one respondent, a pro-independence campaigner, put it, “that’s why universities are simultaneously an incredibly important part of the identity of Scotland and yet I would argue
111 nothing like as strong a part of the identity of Scottish people.” In other words, universities, and education generally, have played an important role in the national story of Scotland, wrapped up in historical memories about the Scottish enlightenment and its egalitarian nature, especially when compared with England. This story is well understood by a large number of Scottish residents, and seems to be widespread throughout the university sector itself. But the historical role of universities does not seem to inform individual Scottish identities or shape particular conceptions of the university or university policy. The relationship of individual Scots, then, is thus broadly similar to relationships found elsewhere in the Anglo-sphere: practical, transactional and focused on instrumental values like personal economic mobility. This orientation is underlined by data on Scottish social attitudes.
Social Attitudes
Scottish politicians - both Unionist and nationalist - frequently claim that Scotland is to the left of England politically. Those in favour of independence are often the most vocal on this point, claiming that Scotland’s social democratic values are at constant risk of destruction by Conservative politicians who rule from London. However, polling data tells a more complicated story. Research into Scottish social attitudes indicates that, “in terms of their broad socio-economic and political attitudes, and in terms of their social/moral attitudes, people in Scotland are not markedly more social-democratic than people in the rest of the United Kingdom” (Rosie & Bond, 2007, p. 55). Studies that do find a stronger commitment to social democratic values in Scotland typically find the difference to be modest (Curtice & Ormiston, 2011). Individuals working within and around the Scottish higher education system likewise express skepticism about the difference between political and social attitudes in Scotland and England. This skepticism ranges from full-throated denials:
This comes back to the Yes or No referendum, that somehow we’re more liberal, somehow we’re more touchy-feely, somehow we’re much more left wing, somehow we want more government expenditure and we’re prepared to take higher taxes and all this sort of stuff. But there’s absolutely no evidence for this, right? There’s absolutely none” (academic, Robbins university).
To more subtle views on the possibilities of divergent political preferences:
Is there something distinctly Scottish about being more to the left as it were, and by being more to the left putting more emphasis on equity issues? It’s not always been
112 like this; it’s not always been the case that there is only been one Conservative MP in Scotland. I guess the 60s and 70s you saw many more people voting Conservative. It’s not that Scotland is so completely left oriented (academic, ancient university).
Interestingly, there is one consistent and clear difference between Scotland and England, and while it involves education, it is not specifically about universities or further education colleges:
The area where Scotland is different, I mean, it’s one of the very few areas where there’s a very clear difference …is that, whereas in England, you will still get quite considerable support for the idea that you should use some form of selection at the age of 11, in order to decide whether kids go to grammar schools, or whatever. I mean, there are no grammar schools in Scotland, and there is very little public support indeed for the idea, but that’s one of the very few areas actually, in other words, attitudes towards secondary education are much more clearly different on the two sides of the border, than are attitudes towards university education … at least the funding of university education (academic, Robbins university).
In other words, residents of Scotland continue to strongly support the idea of comprehensive education, where secondary students continue to receive a broad and academic education deep into their schooling, and are not “streamed” into vocational and academic tracks at a relatively young age, as they are in England. There is perhaps an echo here of both the lad o’pairts and the democratic intellect - broad social support for the pathway to higher education remaining open to students of ability for longer, and the democratization of academic knowledge in secondary school as a condition for greater university access. Indeed, polling data indicates that Scots have a particular view of the function and importance of education (Paterson et al, 2001, p. 159):
Scottish national identity is associated in distinctive ways with views about education. Scottishness is associated with seeing education as a publicly funded resource for the community, commanding public respect, and including newcomers in the community.
Respondents consistently pointed out that the apparent left-wing political preferences of Scottish voters are not so much the result of a thoroughgoing commitment to left-wing ideology, but rather a product of the unique dynamics of Scotland’s political parties. Said one respondent:
113 Interestingly, what we know from public attitude surveys is that Scots are not that much more left wing, they’re a little bit more left wing, than England on the conventional measures. But we have a party system that operates differently, because of the weakness of the Conservatives and the presence of the national question” (senior administrator, ancient university).
This point about political competition is an important one in understanding political behaviour and preferences in Scotland. Support for the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland cratered during the period of Tory rule between 1979 and 1997. This means that political competition takes place on the centre-left, as opposed to the centre or the centre- right. As one anonymous respondent observed, “I think that the centre of political gravity in the UK is some way to the right of Scotland.” Said another respondent:
So there’s no viable centre-right alternative, so competition takes place on the centre- left, between three or four centre-left parties. Labour and the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens occasionally. And a leftist party that crops up from time to time, the Scottish Socialist Party. That’s why the swing voters are, that’s where the electoral competition is (academic, ancient university).
Another respondent agreed that there is no competitive centre-right political party in Scotland, but this does not mean there are not people with centre- or even hard-right views.
There is no real centre-right presence in Scotland. And even then, that’s not because there’s not centre-right people, that’s an artifact of the unpopularity of the Conservative party. If you replace that with another party with a different name and different people pursuing some centre-right policies, it would do much better in Scotland than the current one (academic, Robbins university).
In any event, the fact that political competition takes place on the centre-left of the spectrum helps explain why tuition fees have become such a dominant issue for the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, “tuition fees and student support have been prominent issues in every Scottish election since 1999” (Raffe, 2016, p. 27). Policies favouring greater access to higher education - especially when they include net transfers to students - are often associated with the political left (although centre-right government may also embrace similar policies on economic development grounds). The centre-left solution to university access tends to involve some form of tuition subsidy and non-repayable financial assistance. When it comes to tuition fees - the signature policy of the SNP government in the higher education space - it is not clear that Scottish residents have a clear preference for a no-fee policy. Said one respondent with knowledge of public opinion polling:
114 Well, not very many people support that argument of everybody paying fees, but it was only something like a third, or so, of people who at that stage actually said that nobody should have to pay fees. So it was never as popular an issue as you might imagine, and public opinion in Scotland was only slightly different from that in England (academic, Robbins university).
Data collected in the 1999 Scottish Parliamentary Election survey suggests that residents of Scotland who identified as “predominately Scottish” were more likely to favour policies that increased opportunities to attend higher education (Paterson et al, 2001). But favouring increased opportunities does not necessarily mean support for free tuition fees. In a January 2013 poll, 26 per cent of respondents felt that “no students or their families should pay towards the costs of tuition” while 61 per cent believe that “some students and their families should pay towards the costs of tuition depending on their circumstances” (ScotCen, 2013a). In 2016, a survey found that 44 per cent of Scottish residents believed university tuition should be, “funded by the Scottish government through general taxation,” compared with 24 our cent who believed that students or their families should either pay outright (7 per cent) or through a student loan program (17 per cent) (ScotCen, 2016a). This finding indicates strong support for the continued provision of free tuition fees, but as is the case with most public-opinion research, how the question is asked matters. In another 2016 survey, 42 per cent of respondents indicated that they would support the introduction of tuition fees if those fees were imposed on higher-income students to support expanded access for lower- income students, while 35 per cent would continue to oppose fees in this case (ScotCen, 2016b). Taken together, this data demonstrates that the relationship of Scottish voters to the tuition fee question is nuanced, with policy preferences shifting according to context. While there is certainly strong support for the no-fee policy in Scotland, it is not accurate to say that this preference is totalizing. What does consistently emerge in the data is a belief that tuition fee policy in Scotland should be fair.
Public Attitudes and Political Motivation
The examination of social attitudes surveys raises the obvious question that, if Scotland is not particularly more left-wing than England or the rest of the UK, are left-leaning policies politically motivating in the Scottish context? Here it is important to make a distinction between regular electoral contests and the extraordinary case of the Independence Referendum. In a normal election campaign, voters are concerned with more day-to-day policy and governance questions, while a plebiscite on Scotland’s future as an autonomous
115 country would necessarily involve more existential questions about the economy, the currency and the sustainability of important public services like the NHS. With this in mind, it is not surprising that tuition fees have been a perennial issue in election campaigns for the Scottish Parliament - under the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition that formed the first devolved government of Scotland, and later under SNP minorities and majorities. Tuition fees are an interesting bellwether in this context, because as a policy issue it contains potential approaches that cross the entire political spectrum. Free or heavily subsidized tuition fees tend to be favoured by left-wing political parties and are consistent with ideas of social citizenship found in social democratic states. Higher tuition fees offset by generous financial aid programs, offering support through a mixture of grants and loans, are favoured by centrist parties, on both the right and left, while more market-oriented, high-fee regimes are favoured by more right-wing or economically liberal parties. Since Devolution, Scotland, under the leadership of different parties, has favoured policy solutions with a decidedly left-wing flavour. The Scottish Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition elected in the first election for the devolved parliament rejected the up-front fees being introduced in the rest of the UK, and opted for the graduate endowment. This endowment, where students paid back a fixed amount following graduation (£2289 at the time of its abolition), certainly appeared a more centrist response than a social democratic one, but was in many ways a more progressive policy than its counterpart in England. The overall amount was lower, and students had the option of paying a lump sum at the time of graduation (thereby avoiding interest charges), or could convert it into an effective income-contingent loan. There was also no fee charged up- front, as was the case in the rest of the UK. In any case, the endowment did not last long, and it is therefore difficult to assess its impact. The SNP minority elected in 2007 moved quickly to abolish the endowment. For their part, the SNP seems to believe strongly in the political mobilizing potential of the free tuition policy. Said a former cabinet secretary:
The tuition fee policies is and was, was and is very powerful, because it does say to Scotland but also to younger people that the government values strongly access to education and will do everything it can to guarantee it (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
Members of other political parties also, if somewhat grudgingly, acknowledge the success of the SNP’s tuition policy:
I think it’s important. I mean whether or not in the sort of broader scheme of things, whether it shifts large numbers of votes, I’d have my doubts, but given the number of
116 people with a direct experience of higher education, particularly with the expansion in the number, so whether it’s staff at universities, whether it’s students that are going through university or about to go through university or having just completed a university degree or indeed their parents or a wider network of family, it touches on a significant number of people and therefore the decisions that are taken around how its funded, how it’s organized, etc. probably do matter an awful lot to that kind of cohort of the people” (Member of Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrat).
Respondents tended to agree that the nature of the free-tuition policy - simple to communicate and understand, apparently bold, and resonant with old ideas about equity and fairness - has allowed the SNP to comprehensively “own” the issue:
If you have a party like the SNP which is so strongly in favour of free tuition, it blows everyone else out of the water, because it’s such an easy policy to understand, it’s such a popular policy for lots of middle class, articulate, politically motivated, kids and their families. It’s the families, these voters, that you’re going to be the big bad ogre to and say, “Actually, we’re going to charge your kids nine grand.” And it’s just, they’ve blown everyone out of the water with that. It’s impossible for anyone else to, apart from the Tories, who are not going to get in anyways, and they actually have a policy on it, they would bring in fees (former civil servant).
Or, as another respondent put it, “it’s always difficult to argue against something that’s free, isn’t it?” (academic, Robbins university). The SNP has been able to dominate this issue, and to meaningfully connect it to arguments about greater political autonomy, in part because of their arguably greater political flexibility on this policy file. The other major Scottish political parties – Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish Tories – are all regional branches of larger national UK parties, and this tends to constrain some of their ability to develop divergent policies. Tuition fees were introduced by the UK Labour Party in 1998, compelling the Scottish Labour Party to take a similar line. Interestingly, in the 1999 elections for the Scottish Parliament, the SNP, Lib Dems and Conservatives all promised to abolish fees. These commitments were less about student access than they were a political calculation- the fee issue allowed all three parties to present Labour as “less Scottish, lacking autonomy from London” (Hunter Blackburn, 2016, p. 35). As it happened, Labour won a plurality of seats in the 1999 election, but required support from the Liberal Democrats to form government. The latter party refused to enter unless the tuition fee policy was reversed, which set off an intensive period of policy negotiation resulting in the Cubie Report and establishment of the graduate endowment. Since the 1999 Scottish elections, with the exception of the SNP, the position of the major
117 parties on tuition fees have shifted. Both Labour and the Lib Dems now have a somewhat muddled position on tuition fees, raising concerns about the financial health of the university and further education sectors without calling outright for the reintroduction of some form of student contribution. The Scottish Conservatives, despite initially opposing the introduction of fees, began to advocate for the reintroduction of tuition charges in 2007. In 2020, they reversed course again, indicating that, as a result of the COVID-19 disruption, they would “re-think our policy on introducing tuition fees and a graduate contribution” and will “support free tuition for university students, while calling for college places to be viewed as equally valuable” (Grant, 2020). At the present time, no major Scottish political party is advocating for a return to tuition fees, making it likely that the policy will remain in place. A functional consensus around this issue also makes it harder for the SNP to contrast its own position against its political competitors, although it is still able to effectively contrast its approach with the rest of the UK. The SNP also enjoys the political advantage of greater clarity in its position on independence- they are emphatically in favour of Scotland becoming an independent nation, firmly within the European Union. Labour and the Lib Dems oppose independence, but want more powers for Scotland – a nuanced position that is often difficult to communicate effectively. The Tories are devoutly Unionist, so also benefit from clarity on this issue. Overall, since the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the SNP has benefitted from clear definitive messages around both independence and student fees. Tuition fees have thus been a definitive issue for the Scottish Parliament, and the SNP have embraced what is arguably the most powerful permutation of this policy in the Scottish context. However, tuition fee policy - and other universal benefits introduced by the SNP - do not seem to drive political choices on their own. Looking at the actual voting behaviour of individuals around the tuition fee issue is instructive. One of the key informants has unique insight into the polling data, and is worth quoting at length:
Of those people who supported the proposition that no student should have to pay tuition fees, in 2007, 52 per cent of them voted for parties who support this policy position, i.e. one of Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens, or the far left, and 47 per cent voted for either the Tories or Labour, who were opposed to that position. And meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, those who were opposed to the proposition, and therefore, in some sense, were not in favour of tuition fees, 49 per cent voted for parties that were in favour of that policy, and 49 per cent voted for parties that were against….In other words, there was only roughly a 50 per cent chance on most of these issues, that are devolved issues in the election, that people actually voted for the party whose position was commensurate with their own. So I think you can see why I’m skeptical” (academic, Robbins university).
118 While the SNP may believe that the tuition fee policy has helped drive their electoral success and cornered their political opponents, the evidence is uneven. The SNP has undoubtedly been successful in the past few elections, even achieving a majority government in a system designed to prevent single-party rule. But it is likely that their tuition fee policy is not a driving factor in this success. Rather, it is part of a basket of policies and messages that positions the SNP as the most competent party to form government on one hand, and on the other as the party most likely to defend “Scottishness,” which is somewhat ephemeral and depends on stark contrasts with the rest of the UK, especially England. In this sense, it is less the policy itself that is politically motivating, but the way in which it fuels this idea of distinctiveness:
So you’ve got this extraordinary powerful comparator with England. And that’s all that really matters. And what’s really obvious to me, and I look at the below-the-line comments in articles, is that there’s a really, as soon as you say in Scotland there’s something that could be done better, the answer is, well, we don’t do what they do in England. And that’s it. And that’s the absolute argument closer. And it’s used by people arguing online, it’s used by government ministers right across the board. It’s used by journalists. That’s why it’s powerful (former civil servant).
The power of this distinctiveness argument was well recognized among the respondents. One further observed:
I can’t see any political parties changing that now. [The tuition-fee policy] is part of the distinctiveness of Scotland overall in terms of the way in which the state operates and the various services, as you’ve probably gathered, that are available for nothing in Scotland which you would have to pay for in England (academic, ancient university).
In this sense, it is reasonable to conclude that for the SNP in particular, tuition fees have been an important issue that supports their basic argument: Scotland is distinct from England, and that continued membership in the United Kingdom threatens this distinctiveness. Moreover, independence - and to a lesser extent, regional government by the SNP - is the only way to protect Scotland’s unique values and ways of doing things. Higher education policy is not necessarily motivating on its own, but as part of the broader political pitch becomes politically useful. This observation is consistent with Béland & Lecours’ (2008) formulation of the nationalism-social policy nexus, where policy is used as a marker of difference, a signifier of external threat, and finally a means to burnish the reputation of nationalist political parties as defenders of the polity’s unique political values.
119 Divergence and Convergence
The previous chapter argued that the 20th century was a long period of convergence between the Scottish and English higher education systems, with some emblematic examples of policy divergence emerging following Devolution in 1998. Respondents generally agreed that the free-tuition fee policy pursued by the SNP government represented a clear example of divergence with the rest of the UK. One informant reframed this policy development in an interesting way, suggesting that Scotland was, in fact, cleaving to an earlier understanding of higher education, informed by the ideals of the post-war welfare state and the Robbins Principle:
Very interesting, and very characteristic, that you say Scotland has pursued divergence. You don’t say that the Westminster Parliament acting for England has pursued divergence. And that it is where the change has happened. If you look at it in the long-term, we didn’t have fees at UK universities for UK students until they were introduced. And that was an introduction by UK-level minister acting for England. And the increase in the level of tuition fees at various stages has been done by UK ministers acting for England. And I think what you’ve seen in Scotland is a conservatism and an adherence to an earlier understanding around the post-war welfare state, from which policy in England has moved. Scotland is more consistent, you might argue, at seeking to uphold post-war UK traditions whereas England has broken with them (senior administrator, ancient university).
While acknowledging tuition fees as a clear point of difference, other respondents expressed their belief that convergence - both at the UK and international levels - remained powerful in the post-Devolution higher education system. Membership in the UK-wide research area was frequently highlighted as an important anchor for the Scottish universities:
[D]espite Devolution, there are a lot of pressures to maintain a UK system of higher education. Particularly in the area of research. I think you would probably say that it is an area where there has been most pressure to maintain a common system. And it has been greatly advantageous to Scotland, I think” (academic, post-92 university).
Another respondent highlighted international competition - in rankings and league tables, and in recruitment of international students - tended to drive convergence between all universities in the UK and that perceived differences had been exaggerated:
There are some things that are very similar between Scotland and the UK, and some things that are a bit different. So I think anybody who said the Scottish university system was entirely separate from that of the rest of the UK would be distorting the thing, really. So the commonalities, which are probably greater than the differences,
120 all universities are competing within a global higher education market. The staff, students, particularly fee-paying international students, and research income- there, particularly the older universities, are competing in international league tables (anonymous respondent).
Indeed, many respondents noted the increasing importance of international students - who pay high tuition fees - to Scottish universities. Without the ability to charge tuition fees to their domestic students, students from abroad represent a significant source of revenue. One informant frankly observed:
So the goal for most universities in Scotland, particularly because there is no income coming, much income coming from undergraduates, is to see how many Chinese students you can pack into designer MSc’s at 15,000 dollars a pop. And this is the only thing that’s keeping the universities financially afloat, is that they’re quite successful at attracting foreign students to do what I call designer or watered-down degrees at the master’s level, in subjects related to business, that’s a big one (academic, Robbins university).
On a comparative basis, Scotland actually enrolls proportionately fewer international students - 12 per cent - than England and Wales, at 14 per cent and 15 per cent respectively (Weedon & Kong, 2016). The margins between these proportions are small, but because the English system is significantly larger in terms of enrolment, the actual differences are huge; in 2013, there were 3,786 international students in Scotland compared to 43,868 in England (Ibid., p. 112). Nevertheless, there was consistent recognition among respondents that international students were important to Scottish universities. International students have actually become a point of contention between the Scottish and UK governments. Under Conservative rule, the UK has sought to place more extensive limits on immigration, which has made it difficult for UK universities to recruit overseas students. While there have been some recent moves to relax these restrictions, there is a sense that Westminster is preventing Scottish institutions - and Scottish society generally - from enjoying the benefits of greater international student enrolment. This issue even made it into the Scottish Government’s white paper on independence, Scotland’s Future:
We will also reintroduce student visas removed by Westminster to encourage more talented people from around the world to further their education in Scotland, providing income for Scotland’s education institutions and contributing to diversity (2013, p. 16).
For those working in Scotland’s higher education sector, this does not appear to be a manufactured concern. Several respondents mentioned - unprompted - the Fresh Talent
121 Initiative, a Scottish program to attract and retain international students, which was subsequently cancelled in 2008.
Scotland had a Fresh Talent Initiative back in 2004 that you will probably know about which was pretty successful actually. Basically it allowed international graduates of Scottish universities to stay and work here for two years after they graduated. It only lasted for four years and it was rolled out to the rest of the UK, then abolished by the Home Secretary in 2008. I think the SNP government would like to see that reinstated so it can ty and retain international students in Scotland and encourage them to stay and work here and have families here afterwards (academic, ancient university).
Said another respondent:
So we had an initiative called the Fresh Talent Initiative a few years back which allowed us to offer Visas with post-study work. And it’s something which is now, the sector is across the UK struggling with because of the immigration policy of Westminster, which to be frank, most of Westminster thinks is wrong. And a lot of colleagues at Universities UK are pointing this out and there is a political recognition that this is damaging to universities, yet it hasn’t been changed yet (policy director, advocacy organization).
While internationalization is often presented as a force for greater convergence between institutions in the UK (and globally, for that matter), the international student issue demonstrates how it has become a source of friction within the UK. Immigration policy is reserved to the Westminster Parliament, so Scotland is unable to chart its own course in this area. But given the views of those in government and those working in the sector, it is likely that some divergence would exist here as well, if the power to do so rested with the Scottish Parliament. The reference to international students in Scotland’s Future demonstrates how this type of frustrated divergence can become part of an argument for independence.
Assessing the Free-Tuition Policy
There is a risk to taking an uncritical approach to the claims about the free-tuition policy. While the SNP have positioned the free-tuition policy as a question of equity - higher education should be “based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay” – there exists in Scotland an undercurrent of discussion questioning how equitable this policy actually is. If the free-tuition policy is not achieving its stated aims, or carries knock-on effects that might work against broader access to higher education, this reality would cast the policy in a different light. Namely, a disjuncture between stated goals and outcomes might indicate that
122 the policy carries more symbolic weight than practical function. To help illuminate this distinction, it is worth revisiting the distinction between the different types of university access. In an influential paper, Anisef et al. (1985) argue that there are two basic forms of access: Type I access is concerned with how many individuals, either from the overall population or the traditional postsecondary cohort of 18-24-year-olds, participate in higher education. Type II access is a measure of who goes to higher education, analyzing differences in PSE participation between different socio-economic and demographic groups. Scotland has always performed favourably on Type I access, with a historically higher rate of postsecondary participation relative to the rest of the UK (Keating, 2005; Shattock 2007). Although Scotland’s lead in higher education attainment has decreased in recent years (more a reflection of gains made by England, Wales and Northern Ireland than Scottish under- performance), the historical fact of wider access in Scotland has become part of its national story. Type II access is also an important part of the historical Scottish tradition, and the lad o’pairts myth deeply rooted in the idea that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds were able to access a university education at a higher rate than their peers in England. Low or free-tuition policies are typically presented as policies concerned with improving Type II access, by reducing or removing financial barriers that prevent under-represented and traditionally disadvantaged groups from accessing higher education. The framing of Scotland’s elimination of tuition fees is consistent with this assumption. However, the evidence supporting the notion that lower fees lead to better Type II access is less than definitive. Reviewing the literature on tuition fees and university access, it seems that heavily subsidized or completely free tuition fees are neither a sufficient nor necessary condition for ensuring university participation. Other social and individual factors - such as educational attainment of parents, race, and primary and secondary school attainment, among others, are at least as important as the overall cost of higher education in determining whether a student will progress into a college or university program (Deller et al, 2019; EPI, 2008). It is also possible to mitigate the potentially discouraging effects of high tuition fees on university participation through generous student aid policies. A 2017 study looking at access across Canadian provinces found that Ontario - which currently has the highest tuition fees in the country, though still much lower than the UK and USA - had the highest rate of increase of access among the lowest-income quintile relative the highest-income quartile, even when compared to jurisdictions with considerably lower fees (Frenette, 2017). This study examined trends among 19-year-olds between 2001 and 2014, so it is certainly possible that different trends are present for older or non-traditional students. Still, Ontario’s success with the 19-
123 year-old cohort was accomplished primarily through progressive investment in, and refinement of, the province’s student financial aid program. Indeed, it is often argued that jurisdictions with moderate tuition fees and generous financial aid programs are more equitable, as public investment is directed towards lower-income students while higher- income students receive lower levels of subsidy (Hunter Blackburn, 2014; Baum & Turner, 2019; Usher, 2019). The research suggests that access to higher education is complex and multi-faceted, and can seldom be traced to a single factor, financial or otherwise. This is not to say that low- or free-tuition policies do not increase access for low-income or otherwise under-represented individuals. Rather, they are not the only way to achieve this outcome. With that in mind, the tuition fee policy of the current Scottish Government must be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness. As already discussed, while there is some evidence that Scotland performs slightly better than Wales and England in access to higher education, this access is uneven. A significant portion of this access occurs through post-92 universities and further education colleges, while the ancient universities - once the supposed preserve of the lad o’pairts - are no better than Oxford and Cambridge at facilitating access for lower-income students. In an intriguing policy paper, the UK’s Higher Education Policy Institute used 2016 POLAR data to calculate a Gini Coefficient - a widely used measure of inequality - for every higher education institution in the country. This bottom five institutions - where access is most unequal - include the Universities of Aberdeen, Oxford, Bristol, St. Andrews and Cambridge. Expanding this list to the 13 most unequal institutions captures Edinburgh and Glasgow as well. Clearly, these institutions are not leading the way in access for low-income students - in Scotland, that honor goes to the University of Stirling, which still falls into the bottom half of the ranking (Martin, 2018). The fair access ranking is experimental, and should be interpreted cautiously. As we have seen, up-to-date comparisons of the relative accessibility of Scottish universities are also difficult due to the divergence between measures of disadvantage - POLAR vs SIMD. But taken together, this evidence suggests that the free-tuition policy has not made universities in Scotland any more accessible to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. True, the policy is still relatively young, so significant shifts in participation patterns may not yet be apparent. Moreover, the underwhelming performance of Scottish universities on the access front cannot solely be attributed to shortcomings in the SNP’s tuition policy. Scotland continues to struggle with secondary school attainment in disadvantaged areas, and the “attainment gap” between high- and lower-income students appears particularly severe in the Scottish context.
124 A 2014 report found that this gap was “14–17 per cent for reading, 21 per cent for writing, and 12-28 per cent for numeracy from primary through to secondary school” (Sosu & Ellis, 2014, p. 2). If individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are unable to acquire the skills and credentials necessary to progress to postsecondary education, then no tuition policy will be able to improve Scotland’s performance on postsecondary access. According to one respondent:
The weakness is the number of kids who come through school, from deprived areas, with qualifications good enough to come are very, very small indeed. In educational terms, this is as much a school education issue as it is a higher education issue (senior administrator, ancient university).
In the course of conducting interviews for this project, a critique of the free-tuition policy began to emerge, often from those most knowledgeable about postsecondary policy. Free or heavily subsidized tuition fees are often criticized along three basic lines: that higher education essentially delivers returns to the individual, and therefore the individual must bear the cost of attending (for a classic expression of this view, see Friedman, 1962); that tuition fee subsidies are essentially a regressive transfer of resources, as they disproportionately benefit higher-income students who are still more likely to participate in higher education (Baum & Turner, 2019); and they may tend to actually limit access for lower-income individuals, as the number of students in the system is limited by number the government is prepared to fund. Moreover, higher tuition subsidies may increase competition for these scarce spaces. Middle- and higher-income students are better positioned to succeed in this competitive environment, and the net result is greater, not less, inequality (Hiler & Whistle, 2019). While the right-of-centre argument around individual benefits is certainly present in Scotland, it tends not to feature in mainstream discourse because political competition occurs primarily on the centre-left. Rather, the critique tends to emerge from those who are personally and professionally concerned with expanding access to education, and is a variation of the regressive and access-limiting arguments. Essentially, critics suggest that the free-tuition policy does not achieve what it sets out to do while suppressing debate around other policies that might be working against wider university access. Not surprisingly, the argument around individual returns was largely absent from the key informant interviews. The regressive distribution argument did feature prominently, however, typified by statements like:
Given the fact that a very considerable majority of the young people that go into
125 higher education continue come from the more advantaged social and economic backgrounds, it is effectively a form of subsidy for families who are already actually more advantaged, and people who will as a result of their university degrees, move into more advantaged places in society (academic, post-92 university).
Similarly, the criticism around capped or constrained spaces was also present:
Scottish universities are in a unique place in the UK, because the government pays the fees of Scottish students, so that puts them unique. That’s good news for those students, but bad news because the number of Scottish places is therefore capped. And more than that, I mean understandably capped, because the government pays for every Scot to go to university. So every university gets so many places to take in Scottish students. And I think that’s great. But there are two negatives. One is that if you’re a Scottish student, and you don’t get into that box, you can’t pay to come. So we can take people from all around the world who want to pay to come to St. Andrews as a student, except Scotland (senior administrator, ancient university).
Many respondents highlighted the fact that the free-tuition policy has not delivered significant access outcomes for lower-income students. One respondent observed:
In Scotland, nobody pays. But we still have big social class differences in terms of who actually goes to university. And one of the difficulties for the Scottish government is that the abolition of the graduate endowment, which poor students didn’t pay anyway, didn’t make any difference to widening access. They would like to give the impression that in England poor students can’t go to university, whereas is Scotland they can. But if you look at the social profile at the institutions in Scotland and England, they’re actually remarkably similar rather than different (anonymous respondent).
For some respondents, this was a moral issue:
I think it is wrong. And I think it's wrong because it promises something that it doesn’t achieve. It is presented as a policy that is furthering the issue of social equality in our society, but the evidence doesn’t show that it has achieved that (academic, post-92 university).
All of these quotations reflect what we might call the “general” critique of free tuition policies. But the key informant interviews also revealed two specific critiques of the policy in the Scottish context: provisions for student financial aid, and the treatment of the further education colleges. If we accept that the tuition fee policy has not fully achieve its stated goal - facilitating equitable access to higher education such that attendance is based on “the ability to learn, not the ability to pay” - then it is important to understand what other provisions exist for promoting greater participation in Scotland, and how they compare to other jurisdictions. In England, high tuition fees are offset at the point of entry by generous loan
126 programs. The £9,000 fee introduced in 2012 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is theoretically a maximum limit, although in practice most institutions have raised their fees to this level. But accessing a university in these three jurisdictions is functionally free at the point of entry because of the corresponding loan program which pays a student’s fees directly to the host institution. The debt incurred is repaid through an income-contingent scheme, with nine per cent of income over £21,000 (in England and Wales) or £17,355 (in Scotland and Northern Ireland). The system also contains rather generous assumptions about the number of borrowers who will never fully repay, and has write-off periods of 25 years (for “Plan 1” loans in England and Wales) or 30 years (for all Scottish loans and “Plan 2” loans in England and Wales). As the previous quotation suggests, there is some political expediency to pushing the notion that students in the rest of the UK are saddled with sizeable upfront costs:
And the thing, the huge piece of popular belief, we can go around this restaurant right now, you can go out with a clipboard and spend an hour, and you’d find that 95 per cent of people think that in England you have to find that £9,000. You’ve got to pay it up front. Because if you look at some of the material produced for the referendum, some of the material produced by the Scottish government…and you’ll find that ability to pay, people just believe. I’ve met people and had reports of people who’ve got kids who wanted to go to England, and they say, well you can’t go to Oxford, you can’t go to Leeds, you can’t go to Newcastle, because we’d have to find £9,000 (former civil servant).
This belief, though erroneous, helps support the SNP’s narrative around the distinctiveness and greater fairness of Scottish student funding. But this narrative also helps to obscure some uncomfortable facts about the Scotland’s student financial aid system. Work done by Lucy Hunter Blackburn (2014; 2016) has demonstrated that the Scottish student financial aid system may contain some regressive elements. While the English system requires students to take out large loans to cover the upfront costs of attending university, it also makes use of non-repayable financial assistance - grants - for lower income students. Wales, while permitting universities to charge fees, also makes available a maximum £5,500 grant applied against the overall tuition bill, reducing the effective cost to roughly 2006 fee levels, or £3,500 (Hunter Blackburn, 2016, p. 41). This grant is available in full up to incomes of £22,000, and declines gradually before disappearing for incomes above £52,000 (Hunter Blackburn, 2014). Significantly, the Welsh grant is also portable - while the Scottish free-tuition policy is only available to Scotland-domiciled students who study in Scotland, a student from Wales can use their grant anywhere in the UK. Scotland’s financial aid system makes comparatively lower use of grants. Completely
127 subsidized tuition fees for Scottish-domiciled students is arguably a very high upfront grant, but the provision of financial aid for living costs - a significant expense, particularly for students living away from home - makes relatively higher use of loans at lower incomes than other jurisdictions in the UK. Less than £2,000 in grant is made available to young (under 25) students, and less than £1,000 for mature students, which declines in a series of steep steps past incomes of £16,000 before disappearing for students with incomes greater than £34,000. Excluding the tuition subsidy, this places Scotland well behind all other jurisdictions in the UK (Hunter Blackburn, 2014). The net effect of this policy is that many groups - such as students living at home in Scotland, and those with higher incomes - are better off than their peers in the UK. But for Scottish students living away from home, “Scotland is unique in having a system which assigns the highest student debt to those from the lowest income homes, due to its much lower use of student grant” (Hunter Blackburn, 2014, p. 1). Hunter Blackburn’s analysis also suggests the policy of providing free tuition for all, without consideration of income or need, amounts to an effective transfer of funding away from lower-income students towards their higher income peers when compared with the rest of the UK. The relative shortcomings of student financial aid in Scotland was understood by many interview respondents, some from personal experience:
Actually my daughter is just starting university and isn’t facing fees, but equally she would have no assistance with her living costs. So obviously, those young people are going to emerge from university with an amount of debt. Now whether it is more or less than their contemporaries in England or Wales or Ireland is a question that depends partly on where you start from (policy director, university advocacy organization).
One respondent who believes strongly that the current student funding regime in Scotland creates perverse equity outcomes, also felt that the emphasis on the free-tuition policy by the Scottish Government left very little space in the policy discourse to talk about financial aid. The result is a tendency for politicians, the media and citizens to ignore some of the negative outcomes of the current arrangements:
And I think one of the most striking features of the debate is the absolute difference between what’s said, and often repeated, and taken as self-evidently true, and what happens when you actually do the maths. And it’s stark. It’s completely stark. We’ve ramped up student debt, and if you graph who's leaving college with debt, or who’s taken the biggest share of that debt load, you find it’s the poor who take a disproportionate share of that debt load. And you find in absolute amounts in debt, the
128 changes that were brought in, the expectation is that the poor will take more debt than the rich….People don’t want to hear this. They really, really don’t want to hear this, they don’t want to know that free tuition…that if you press the free tuition button, it doesn’t solve all your equity problems. They really don’t want to know that it might be about grants (former civil servant).
Many respondents agreed with both the critical assessment of student funding in Scotland and the idea that the critique does not have particular visibility in policy and popular discourse:
The secret garden of this, of course, is that although Scottish students don’t have to pay tuition fees, income position for income position, the maintenance support for Scottish students is not as good. So basically, therefore, the system is skewed toward providing support for middle class students, as compared with the English system (academic, Robbins university).
However, as demonstrated by at least one interview, there is awareness in the political class that the free-tuition policy is not an equity panacea. But they have either been unable or unwilling to attack the government’s policy:
And it’s an easier concept to get your head around, there are no tuition fees, you will not have to pay to take up a course at university, but I think where we find ourselves now, particularly against the backdrop of such a sizeable expansion in the university population, it’s a very difficult issue in relation to student maintenance and the cost of living. So I would worry that having moved so far away from systems of grant to loans (Member of Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrats).
Not surprisingly, respondents with pro-independence views were skeptical of this critique. One former politician rejected the critique outright- not only do Scottish students receive the best funding, but their debt outcomes are superior to those in the rest of the UK.
‘You know, not least because the funding is good, but it’s certainly better than elsewhere, but also because students will have the lowest level of debt when they graduate in Scotland. Substantially, about a third of what the debt would be south of the border, and that’s pretty significant” (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
All things being equal, one would expect the financial aid issue to be more salient in political debates in Scotland. If the SNP has achieved electoral success by “owning” the tuition fee issue as part of its positioning as the defenders of a Scottish tradition of equity and universal provision of social programs, the potential problems in Scottish student funding highlighted by Hunter Blackburn and others should cast some doubt on the SNP’s social democratic bona fides. But this questioning has, for the most part, not occurred. One
129 respondent, a journalist, pointed out that the he and his colleagues had covered the unflattering research on Scotland’s student financial aid system, but it did not have much of an impact:
What they did also is they cut the amount of money that was actually given in bursaries, in non-repayable grants, to some of the poorer students at the same time. It’s a very strange thing to do, for a government that’s cloaked in the colours of universal free education because we believe in the rights of everyone no matter how rich or poor…is a slightly different policy….We covered it, and it’s done, it’s in the public domain, people know about it, but they’ve been held to account in the way the should’ve done by us and by others. That’s the one area of their policy where you sort of think, oh, where is the true, where is the philosophy there (journalist)?
One explanation for this lack of public impact lies in the potential symbolic power of free- tuition policies. They are simple to understand, inherently bold and contrast sharply with policies in the rest of the UK and across most of the western world. As a near-universal benefit, it connects with long welfare-state traditions that are still powerful in societies where universally accessible service exist or once existed. And in Scotland, it takes on additional power as a policy that speaks to a historical identity more rooted in equality and fairness. As one respondent observed:
Whether having free tuition is the best way of improving access is open to debate. But that’s the way the argument is presented, everyone should have access to higher education. But that does touch some of these important Scottish myths, and that’s what the SNP will certainly use it, use that constantly, “well this is part of our Scottish values, our Scottish traditions” (academic, ancient university).
In this sense, the actual outcomes of the policy are somewhat beside the point, as the free tuition fees discourse operates at an emotional level, not an empirical one. Although Scotland is perhaps a unique case, given its historical myths of equity and its desire to distinguish itself from a larger neighbour, the symbolic and emotional nature of tuition fees is present in many other western nations. Consider the massive demonstrations against higher tuition fees in Quebec during 2012 (as discussed in chapter eight), or even the pledge made by the self- identified democratic socialist Bernie Sanders in the 2020 American presidential campaign - to “make public colleges and universities tuition free, and cancel all student debt” (Friends of Bernie Sanders, 2020). Policy debates around issues like tuition fees are fraught, because those on either side of the issue are constructing very different arguments. Those who question the efficacy of free-tuition policies typically make data-driven and outcomes- focused appeals, while those in favour of free tuition usually make an aspirational claim
130 about the kind of society they want to live in, and what principles support that ideal vision (fairness, equity, solidarity, etc.). It is difficult to find common ground in these debates, as those on either side fundamentally do not agree on what they are arguing about. The key informant interviews also revealed another controversial outcome of the free- tuition fee policy - the idea that it was at least partially funded by a significant funding cut to Scotland’s further education colleges (FECs). The dramatic rise in tuition fees introduced by the Conservative government of David Cameron in 2012 - where fees were allowed to increase from £3000 to £9000 - was actually part of a larger change to the way the UK government funded universities in England. In 2011-12, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) provided institutions with £4.34 billion to support teaching activities. Under the new funding model, this amount fell to £1.42 billion. The rise in tuition fess was meant to compensate for this dramatic loss of revenue from government, and a significant expansion of the student financial aid system was meant to buffer the impact of this increase on students. The cut in the teaching grant was so large, “for the first time, [tuition] fee increases caused cash allocations under the Barnett formula to be lower than they would otherwise have been” (Hunter Blackburn, 2016, p. 41). In other words, the cut to the teaching grant meant that the funding available to the Scottish Government decreased just at a time that they were embarking on the very expensive free-tuition policy. The acquiescence of the Scottish universities to the new fee policy was predicated on being protected from any loss revenue, which meant the government had to make the universities whole with fewer available resources than they had before. As one respondent observed:
There was a firm political agreement to insulate Scottish universities, to make sure Scottish universities remain competitive with their rest-of-UK counterparts following the introduction of fees in England, and the variants in Wales and Northern Ireland. And there was clearly a trade-off in the education budget. That can be portrayed very simplistically, and it often is in politics, with this becoming a party-political issue with the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament arguing in a sense for the FE sector not least because many of the colleges are based in and serve people from disadvantaged communities who have been Labour’s traditional support (senior administrator, ancient university).
The criticism advanced by the Scottish Labour Party was that the universities were kept whole in the wake of the free-tuition policy through significant cuts to the FECs. This criticism was echoed by a number of respondents, typified by statements like:
So they’ve taken about £60 million a year out of the college budgets, again as I’m
131 sure you’re aware, the colleges are much more successful at attracting students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, and again in terms of widening access to higher education, that’s a major route for people to get access into university degrees. So, by actually reducing funding for colleges and reducing student numbers in colleges, they have actually weakened a key area that enables access to university for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. So in that respect, I think it’s a very dishonest policy and I’m quite fundamentally opposed to it (academic, post-92 university).
Similarly, another academic observed:
Well, you see, the colleges are an embarrassment to the Scottish Government. The colleges cater to people from the poorest communities. But there has been a slashing of colleges over the last few years. The number has been reduced from 32 to 14, and they’ve had their arms twisted, they’ve been bullied into going along with these plans. But they have been really not happy about what’s happened to them….I think college funding, when you’ve got a situation where college funding has been cut and university funding has been ramped up, it becomes quite hard to see how you can spin this in a way that supports a socially just narrative (academic, ancient university).
What both of these statements hint at is the historical fact that a significant amount of higher education provision in Scotland occurs within the FEC sector, and that much larger numbers of lower-income students take part in this pathway. It usually takes the form of a Higher National Certificate (HNC) or Higher National Diploma (HND), which can be used to enter a university, often with advanced standing. Between 1990 and 2006, an average of 28 per cent of total higher education undergraduate enrolment was in the FECs, peaking at 34 per cent in 2000 and falling to 22 per cent in 2006 (Gallacher, 2009, p. 391). According to data from the Scottish Funding Council, in 2005-06, 22 per cent of students enrolled in a college higher-education program came from the most-deprived income quartile, compared to 10 per cent enrolled in a university or higher education institution (Ibid., p. 394). Looking again at 2006 data, 25 per cent of students who received an HND or HNC entered a full-time degree program at a university. Osborne and McLaurin (2006), examining 1999-2000 data, found that 19 per cent of FE graduates pursuing a university degree were studying in an ancient university, while 53 per cent were enrolled in a post-92 institution. This echoes findings by Ianelli et al (2011) and Gallacher (2014) that access to higher education in Scotland is driven by “diversion” of students from more disadvantaged quintiles towards newer and less prestigious institutions. As Gallacher (2014) notes, the colleges “continue to be more successful than any of the university sectors in providing [higher education] opportunities, not just for school leavers, but also for older students” and, “it is clear that students with HNC/Ds much more likely to progress to degree-level study in the post 1992
132 universities rather than the more prestigious ancients, or even the 1960s institutions, and there is little evidence of change over the last five years” (p. 104). Access may have expanded for lower income students, but the provision of higher education in Scotland remains significantly stratified. While this data is older, it does paint a picture of the FECs as an important pathway towards university attainment for many Scottish students, and in particular those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Gallacher (2009) describes the movement of students from FECs into university degree programs as “a tradition of higher education provision which has been independent of the universities, and which has become an important part of the work of many colleges” (p. 399). Given the Scottish higher education’s historical orientation towards a sense of “traditions,” this is a significant observation. In the context of the debate around the free-tuition policy, it would be a problematic outcome if the colleges, and their higher education pathway for disadvantaged individuals, were diminished to pay for universal free tuition, a policy which continues to disproportionately benefit middle- and higher-income university students. The counter-claim to this narrative around the FEC sector is that rather than imposing cuts, the Scottish Government has rationalized the colleges and re-focused them on full-time, rather than part-time, provision. It is worth quoting a particular respondent, who was close to the policy, at length, as it illustrates the government’s rationale for reforming the college sector in some detail:
I think we should start with the nonsense, which is, you know, a hundred thousand places cut. If there were a hundred thousand students that couldn’t get places at colleges, I would have known about it. Every MSP would have been up in arms. I would have been pilloried by every student organization. In actual fact, I can only remember two occasions in which a fellow member of the Scottish Parliament came to me and said there was a problem with admissions for a student…So, what we took out of the system, what I took out of the system were a lot of courses, which were, no doubt intrinsically valuable in themselves, but did not lead to recognized qualifications. And I did that for two reasons. The first of which was, when we entered into the slump, the depression, call it what you will, in 2008, I was actually determined along with Alex Salmond, the First Minister, and you know, we were very close on this issue, that what we had seen in the Thatcher years, where a whole generation lost employment and lost opportunities for employment and many never found it again, that we would not allow that to happen….
The second one was, the college sector was largely unaccountable. You know, this was, the last time the colleges were reformed, it was the last of the Thatcher right reforms and what it did, it handed control of the colleges essentially to the private
133 sector. Now, astonishingly, Labour can continue to defend this long after it became obvious that a lot of these colleges were essentially self-perpetuating boards of directors in which, you know, people knew their friends, their brother-in-law, largely because they couldn’t get other people to serve on them. And these did not have any real democratic accountability or control. Now, I upped the involvement of the student body and the trade unions. I made it absolutely clear that there should be a much wider representation on those boards.
Better and more applicable educational outcomes for students, and improving the accountability of the institutions overall, are outcomes that would likely enjoy widespread public support. But this particular respondent did acknowledge that the search for financial efficiencies also played a role:
Finally, yes of course, we used the opportunity to see what money we could save, because finally a lot of these colleges were really inefficient. They were offering lots of courses, which really couldn’t be afforded, they were being run in an unaccountable manner, and they were essentially too small to be effective. And we needed to create colleges of scale, which could compete with universities so it wasn’t necessarily that every young person felt, it was either university or nothing, but colleges could do good things, because colleges also deliver in Scotland 25 per cent of degrees (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
Faced with stark disagreement over the SNP’s policy towards the FECs - with one side claiming college budgets were essentially raided to pay for the university tuition fee policy, the other arguing that reform was needed for an inefficient and unaccountable sector - what can be meaningfully said about its effects? There is no question that the reforms initiated by the SNP government created significant change within the sector. The 26 existing FE colleges were organized into 13 regions, each with a strong regional focus and mandate. The emphasis on full-time studies leading to a recognized credential referenced in the above quotation has led to a shift in the balance of full-time and part-time students. Between 2007 and 2015, according to one study, the full-time students increased by 16 per cent while the number of students studying part-time fell by 52 per cent. In terms of absolute student numbers, this represents an overall decrease of 40 per cent, or over 150,000 students (McMurray, 2019, p. 206). While this drop seems severe, it is worth remembering that part- time students are fractions of a single Full-time equivalent (FTE) student. The addition of a single FTE will therefore compensate for the loss of several part-time students. Said one respondent:
The number that the Labour party often quotes is the number of students, but what
134 they fail to tell you is that those are actual student numbers, not FTEs. And the FTEs increased, because what they did is that they removed a lot of the very short courses and tried to have courses with a little more substance to them. There’s also significant capital expenditure in the rationalization of FE colleges. Colleges in Aberdeen have had massive expenditure, and it’s been merged with another college, a northeast Scotland college, and these are major new colleges, in Glasgow with the merger of various colleges. So, there’s a message that the Labour party is trying to get out there, which I don’t think is sustainable from the evidence (anonymous respondent).
However, it also seems to be true that the changes to Scotland’s FE sector have also caused a substantial decrease in the number of students over the age of 25 (McMurray, 2019). The option to study part-time is often attractive to older students, as it provides greater flexibility to accommodate employment, childcare and eldercare responsibilities. The SNP’s greater emphasis on full-time programs and recognized credentials may have had the effect of excluding many older students, with problematic equity implications. As suggested by the former cabinet secretary interviewed for this study, finding financial efficiencies was an objective of the reform and rationalization exercise. Indeed, significant funding was pulled out of the FECs as a result of the reforms. Between 2011-12 and 2013-14, the period where the SNP’s reforms were enacted, government transfers to the colleges fell from £511.7 million to £346.2 million, a decrease of 32 per cent (McMurray, 2019, p. 205). The free-tuition policy is underwritten by the so-called dual funding approach, composed of a block teaching grant provided by the Scottish Funding Council, and a £1,825 payment made by the Student Awards Agency Scotland for every Scottish-domiciled student attending a Scottish university. Together, these two sources of funding amounted in 2018 to approximately £840 million (SPICe, 2019). So while it is plausible that the £165 million in savings from the FE sector was used towards meeting this financial obligation, it did not come close to covering it completely. So, in the end, it is difficult to say definitively that the FE colleges were raided to pay for the SNP’s free-tuition commitment. But even if it this was the case, it is even harder to say that the SNP paid a political price for their policy towards the FECs. Despite attempts by the Scottish Labour Party to make this a public issue, and some coverage in the press, it has not damaged the SNP’s electoral prospects or forced a move away from the free-tuition policy. As one respondent observed, universities play a role in the Scottish electorate that the FE colleges simply do not, which makes them vulnerable to the introduction of unfavourable policies:
I think the misfortune of further education colleges is that they don’t have the same level of public support in the public psyche. You can argue about the equity of [the
135 funding changes to the FEC sector], but the argument is made, but I’m not sure that people necessarily have grasped it or think it is a problem or whatever. And, of course, the SNP deny it as well (academic, Robbins university).
The case of the further education colleges casts a shadow on the equity-building argument used to justify the free-tuition policy. From the available evidence, it is clear that the FECs are an effective pathway for a variety of non-traditional students - notably those from disadvantaged backgrounds and older individuals - to access higher education and eventually earn a university degree. This fact represents a modern area of distinctiveness in Scotland, one unconnected to the historical tradition rooted in the ancient universities. It is difficult to say whether the reforms of the FEC sector were undertaken to increase the efficiency of the colleges or to fund the tuition fee policy, but the net result of the reforms was a reduction in part-time students and a net loss of funding from the sector. Given the important role played by these institutions in facilitating access to higher education, this is a potentially worrying outcome and a counterfactual to the SNP’s overall narrative about access to education in Scotland. But again, the symbolic power of the free-tuition policy seems to inoculate the Scottish Government against political criticism aimed at the problematic aspects of their access policies. Overall, testing both the historical tradition of Scottish higher education against the opinions of the key informants reveals that the concept is well understood by many working in and around Scotland’s universities. It also suggests that this tradition is important to Scotland’s national story, but is perhaps less important to individuals as they make political choices. Higher education policy - specifically around tuition fees - has been an important issue in Scottish elections, and has been effectively mobilized by the Scottish National Party to control a particular narrative around access and fairness in higher education, which supports their wider argument about being the only party to truly govern in Scotland’s interests. This argument has also been effective at minimizing criticisms about their financial aid policies and treatment of the further education colleges - both policy areas with significant implications for equitable access to higher education. The key informant interviews also highlight how the nationalism-social policy nexus is present in the tuition fee issue. There was widespread agreement among the respondents that tuition fee policy had been mobilized to tell a very particular story about Scotland in contrast to England - one where the Scots have always been more committed to fairness and equity than their counterparts in the South, a difference illustrated by the lad o’pairts and the historical tradition of Scottish higher education. This tradition is further presented as
136 threatened by the central UK state, but has been preserved and extended by the Scottish National Party. In this narrative, only independence can ultimately safeguard the uniquely Scottish values embodied in the tuition policy. Critics argue that the free-tuition policy has not been particularly effective at improving access to the universities, particularly the elite ancient institutions; that the current financial aid system is regressive; and that the reforms of the FE sector have diminished an important - and unique - Scottish access pathway. These criticisms are, again, speaking somewhat past the point. Scotland’s policy divergence around the free tuition issue, and the political power it carries, cannot be fully understood in functional or instrumental terms. Béland and Lecours (2008) hint at the symbolic rather than practical nature of nationalist social policy when they observe:
nationalist claims for the political decentralization of social policy are not primarily about money and should not be understood in terms of a purely economic cost— benefit analysis. In other words, nationalist movements seeking the partial or complete decentralization of social policy cannot be reduced to financial considerations (p. 140).
While Béland & Lecours here are describing how traditional cost-benefit measures are not the salient feature of a particular policy, but rather its ability to advance their basic political proposition - that the values and aspirations of the sub-state region would be better served through independence. We can extend their observation to the outcomes of a policy as well - it is not whether or not the policy works, but whether it furthers to argument for political autonomy. This is not to say that nationalist politicians are only interested in furthering the cause of independence. Sooner or later, any elected government has to get down to the business of governing, which is very much concerned with costs and outcomes. But the nationalism-social policy nexus adds a layer of motivation and utility that must be understood in order to understand why policy in Scotland has diverged on the issue of tuition fees. The question of whether the SNP’s tuition policy does what it claims to do - ensure that access to higher education is based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay – is therefore not the only test of the policy’s efficacy. Rather, the policy would be judged a political success if it helps mobilize public support behind their independence project. The 2014 referendum is, to date, the ultimate test of the persuasiveness of the SNP’s argument. Assessing the role of higher education within this argument will be the focus of the next chapter.
137 8. Higher Education and the Referendum Campaign
On October 15, 2012, David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Alex Salmond, the SNP First Minister of Scotland, signed the Edinburgh Agreement laying out the terms for a referendum on Scottish independence. More importantly, it set a date: September 18, 2014. The agreement effectively began a two-year campaign that culminated in one of the most significant political decisions made by Scottish voters in generations. Two formal campaign groups were created- the pro-Union “Better Together,” led by the Tony Blair-era Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, and the pro-independence “Yes Scotland.” Although chaired by former journalist Blair Jenkins, Yes Scotland was the also the campaign vehicle of Salmond and his governing SNP. Around both camps swirled a variety of civil society groups articulating different visions for both independence and remaining in the United Kingdom, some framed around conceptions of environmentalism, others social solidarity and many espousing radical reform programs. In the final weeks of the campaign, an apparent surge in support for independence prompted the UK’s political leadership - a cross-party coalition including Cameron, opposition leader Ed Milliband and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg - to make “The Vow,” a promise to devolve greater powers to Scotland should it vote to remain in the United Kingdom. In the end, the vote went to the pro-Union camp by a significant margin- 55 per cent of voters opted to preserve the Union. Voter turnout was very high, with nearly 85 per cent of voters casting a ballot. While the referendum result was a defeat for independence, it was not the end of Scottish nationalism. In fact, the SNP and Scottish Green Party (who had run their own pro- independence campaign) enjoyed a huge upswell in membership in the weeks following the vote, expanding nearly five-fold and six-fold respectively. For the SNP, this surge in membership saw their numbers rise from 25,000 to 120,000 (Bennie et al., 2018).
Higher Education Policy in Media Coverage of the Independence Campaign
While the overall coverage of higher education within the context of the referendum campaign was relatively low - only 213 articles met the threshold to be included in this analysis - the articles collected and analyzed through the content analysis reveal some interesting insights into the patterns of debate. Two basic types of articles were included in the analysis; articles that were substantively about some aspect of higher education policy, and articles where higher education was mentioned in passing, either in a discussion of
138 several related policy areas or as an illustrative example within a larger story or argument. The sample was fairly evenly split between the two article types, with 54.5 per cent falling into the “in passing” category, and 45.5 per cent classified as substantive. The sample was restricted to coverage originating in the UK, with 47.4 per cent published in Scottish- domiciled outlets, and 52.1 per cent appearing in UK-wide media (0.5 per cent appeared through media organizations that maintain headquarters in each of the four UK nations, i.e. the BBC). The proportion of stories originating in Scottish outlets is actually misleading, as there are fewer of these outlets compared to the UK-wide press. Relative to size, it is fair to say that the Scottish-domiciled media was much more active in reporting on the referendum campaign, which is not surprising given its relevance to the audiences served by these publications. Within the sample, whether the story originated in the Scottish or UK-wide media had a statistically significant relationship with the type of viewpoints featured in the articles. Overall, 55 per cent of the articles featured viewpoints that skewed either towards a pro-Union or pro-independence position. Within this group, UK-wide articles were far more likely to publish pro-Union views, at 49 per cent, compared to Scottish publications where pro-Union and pro-independence coverage was more balanced at 20.8 per cent and 28.7 per cent respectively. The relationship between the location of the media outlet and the viewpoints expressed was statistically significant at the p<0.01 level. The vast majority of the articles in the sample - 90.6 per cent - were published in daily newspapers and their associated websites, with 62.9 per cent appearing as typical news stories and 30 per cent as commentary/opinion articles. Predictably, there was a statistically significant (p<0.01) relationship between the type of article and whether a pro-Union or pro- independence preference was expressed - commentary pieces are meant to express an opinion. That said, the opinion pieces contained a fairly balanced spread of perspectives - 28 per cent were pro-Union, 34 per cent pro-independence, and 31 per cent did not express a clear preference but engaged with some aspect of the debate. The analysis also reveals that the coverage on higher education was somewhat dominated by “elite” perspectives. Graph Three breakdown the types of individuals quoted or otherwise featured in each of the articles:
139 Figure Two Individuals featured in articles by type
Elected officials and politicians were overwhelmingly featured in the coverage, distantly followed by academics. Students, arguably most impacted by higher education policies, were featured players in only 4.7 per cent of the articles. The over-representation of politicians is likely a factor of the nature of the referendum campaign, where high-profile members of each side - Alex Salmond heading up the SNP side, former Labour cabinet minister Alastair Darling on the other - squared off to debate the relative merits of independence. Throughout the campaign, other political figures of note, like former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, also made appearances, and this tended to pull focus from on-the-ground individuals. Much of the coverage of the campaign could be characterized as “horse-race journalism,” where consideration of poll numbers - who was up, who was down - took precedence over more nuanced questions of policy. At least one interview respondent felt the lack of widespread public debate was by design, a deliberate move by the No campaign to keep debate out of civil society:
So there was barely a trade union that put a positive contribution in, most of them just followed the Labour line or just stayed out, certainly none of them got involved in any policy work. The churches said virtually nothing. The voluntary sector, the NGO sector which is traditionally very influential and powerful in Scotland they just packed up and went home, just did nothing. So there was this massive vacuum and I think early on the No campaign thought, “Well this has been great, this has gone really
140 well”… and it did, early on (pro-independence campaigner).
This observation was made from a particular political perspective, and should be evaluated as such. But it is interesting that so much of the coverage featured politicians over those who work and study in the sector. Definitive conclusions on this point are beyond the scope of this project, but may be an interesting question for further research. One of the primary hypotheses of the nationalism-social policy nexus is that sub-state nationalists would seek to connect social policy provisions to the particular values of their political community. In the articles analyzed for this study, 32.6 per cent made reference to the values often presented as being uniquely Scottish, like fairness, equity and social justice. While this proportion is relatively large, a much smaller number - 14.4 per cent - connected these values to higher education policy in a meaningful way. Issues around tuition fees for UK students and research funding were examined in functional terms rather than as questions of values. The real-world utility of higher education was a persistent theme in the sample, with 15.6 per cent of the articles referred to the role of higher education in economic development, and 14.6 per cent of the articles made reference to the relatively high performance of its universities in international league tables and in securing funding from the UK research councils. Articles that were substantively about higher education policy were also far more likely to reference policy arrangements in the rest of the UK - 50.5 per cent of these articles did so, compared to just 14 per cent of articles in the “in passing” category. This relationship is statistically significant within the sample (p<0.01). The substantive articles were also more likely to directly contrast Scottish policy with arrangements in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, with 28.9 per cent drawing this comparison, compared to just seven per cent in the non-substantive group. This result suggests that, for journalists and commentators looking at higher education in detail, comparing and contrasting different policy provisions in the UK was a favoured technique within the context of the referendum campaign. Interestingly, the articles often stopped short of drawing conclusions about which policies were more effective. Only 13.2 per cent arrived at any such judgement, with 71.4 (or 9.4 per cent of the total sample) providing a favourable assessment of Scottish policy over its UK comparators. Predictably, 60 per cent of the favourable comparisons were found in articles where the author stated a pro-independence preference. Other issues around higher education policy - such as the controversy surrounding reform of the FE colleges - did not feature in the media coverage of the referendum campaign. The
141 colleges were only mentioned in 4.2 per cent of the articles, and typically did not receive extensive treatment on the rare occasions they were mentioned. In only one opinion piece was the college question used as a political attack:
It is as clear as crystal that the Nats7 have sacrificed these colleges to help pay for their grandiose gesture of free tuition at Scottish universities but they cannot admit that, so instead the First Minister fell back on his old standby of pointing out that English universities charge fees (Cochrane, 2013).
Whereas university faculty had organized groups on either side of the debate - Academics for Yes and Academics Together - college instructors and students had no such representation. It is not surprising then that university issues, such as tuition fees and research funding, dominated the coverage, and provided further evidence of the unique place these institutions hold in Scottish public life. The analysis indicates some counterintuitive patterns in the data (see Figure three). One might expect, for example, that the number of articles concerning higher education and the referendum campaign would start at a relatively low level and ramp up as the voting day approached. Indeed, that would be the case in the sample, were it not for five months in the first half of the data collection with high counts - October 2013, November 2013, January 2014, February 2014 and March 2014.
7 “Nats” is a derivation of “nationalists,” and is typically used in the pro-Union press as a pejorative term for members of the SNP.
142 Figure three Number of higher education articles appearing per month, September 2013-September 2014
These “bubbles” of coverage, in many cases correspond to particular issues that came to the fore at various times in the campaign. This becomes clearer when the graph is split into articles that mention higher education policy in passing, and those that are more substantively about this policy area:
143 Figure four Number of articles per month by intensity of coverage
The relatively large number of substantive articles published in November 2013 was driven by two issues. First, there were accusations that a SNP politician had allegedly demanded that a pro-Union historian at the University of Dundee be silenced, which received wide coverage. Later in the month, Scotland’s Future, the SNP government’s white paper on independence, was published. Higher education was a featured policy area in this document, and tended to be included in the large number of articles examining the white paper’s proposals. The large bump in January 2014 was driven entirely by the issue of whether UK students would be required to pay tuition fees in an independent Scotland. This particular issue continued to receive considerable coverage through February and March 2014, and subsided thereafter. The question of whether Scotland would retain access to the UK’s research funding councils post-independence was spread across the data collection, although it began to rise towards the end of the campaign. Each of these issues will be examined in detail in the following sections, but for now it is enough to say that coverage of higher ed issues in the campaign was largely episodic rather than curvilinear. Overall, a few things are suggested by the content analysis. The small number of articles, and even smaller quantity of items that dealt with higher education policy in a specific way,
144 underscore the fact that higher education was a relatively minor issue in the referendum campaign. It did receive serious attention, and was profiled aggressively by the SNP, but it did not rise to the level of issues like the currency, Scotland’s future in the EU, the National Health Service, and the retention of corporate headquarters. This reality is not surprising in one sense, as higher education tends to only ever directly affect a minority of the population, even in high-participation systems like Scotland. Issues like economic stability and public healthcare involve a much larger group of citizens, so are natural points of focus for a campaign that revolved around aspirations on one hand, and the risks of the unknown on the other. But I would also argue that the nature of coverage around higher education hints at the No campaign’s largely successful attempt to focus voters on what was at risk through independence. Since 2007, the SNP has successfully deployed higher education policy to make values-driven and emotional appeals to voters. A phrase like “rocks will melt in the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scottish students,” in both its poetic imagery and its resonance with supposed Scottish values, is language designed to appeal to the heart. While tuition fees did not win the SNP its 2011 majority government on its own, it certainly helped through its appeal to the emotions of voters. And yet, in the sample of articles considered in this study, these sorts of value statements are largely absent. There is some evidence in the sample that articles that reference tuition fees were slightly more likely to also mention values like fairness and equity. But in terms of the specific issues that gained attention in the campaign and received sustained coverage, the focus was on regulatory and functional concerns rather than questions of political values. Research funding - an issue notable for its lack of emotional resonance with most voters - and the question of whether tuition fees would be charged to UK students in an independent Scotland, are the two topics that “bubbled up,” according to one interview respondent. Both tended to revolve around the potential for negative outcomes; the loss of research income and the loss of fee revenue, both of which would be harmful to the universities. The SNP tried to position its higher education policies in an emotive aspirational space through its white paper and campaign messages, but the articles examined for this study indicate that those messages simply did not punch through into wide public debate. The reasons for this will be considered in the following sections.
Role of Higher Education in the Debate - General
It is fair to say that higher education policy was not a central focus of the two opposing
145 campaigns in the Independence Referendum. Perhaps understandably, issues with clearer implications for a wider cross-section of Scottish society dominated the debate - issues like the currency (whether Scotland would be able to continue using the pound), the general vitality of a post-Independence economy, and membership in the European Union took up a great deal of room in the conversation. An examination of the issues that did rise to prominence in the debate helps illustrate the basic difference between a regular election campaign and a referendum on a question with huge and far-reaching political significance. Election campaigns are typically focused on the personalities and perceived competence of the various party leaders, and their plans for managing the economy and the various social programs (like health and education) that fall under the government’s authority. Referendums, particularly on the definition and composition of the nation, deal very much with the future. As a result, the debate turns on questions of opportunities, risks, and uncertainty. The “Yes” campaign was focused on painting an aspirational picture of an independent Scotland, where economic success blended with visions of wider social equity. For the “No” campaign, the most effective issues were where they could use uncertainty about future arrangements to build anxiety around risks. Said one respondent:
The No side highlighted economic risk, the Yes side had a mix of aspiration - it will all be all right, basically - mixed with a strong sense of risk of social injustice if we stay in the Union. And that had some emblems. It had the emblem of NHS privatization, it had the emblem of bedroom tax, it had the emblem of being governed by Conservatives. These were evocative of a kind of framing which didn’t really have specifics in it. It was creating a mood, on both sides, it was creating a mood of economic risk on one side, a mood of social risk on the other. Specific policy issues were pretty rare amid that, I think (senior administrator, ancient university).
Within this context of aspirations vs. risk, higher education played at best a supporting role. The SNP and other pro-independence campaigners were usually quick to highlight the relative excellence of Scotland’s universities (and to a lesser extent, colleges) and the important role they played under current arrangements and their continued importance in an independent Scotland. Said one respondent:
Whenever anybody in the Scottish Government spoke about things to do with the Scottish economy, and whenever they produced one of the very many papers of various kinds that were fed into the debate, which had an economic context, universities were normally in there by the second paragraph, often by the second sentence (senior administrator, ancient university).
The white paper on independence, Scotland’s Future (2013), which lays out the SNP
146 government’s vision for an independent Scotland, makes several references to universities and related policies. The first reference comes in the executive summary, which positions independence as necessary to, “protect free university education and strengthen Scotland’s academic research base” (p. xvii). Universities are also highlighted early in the report as an area of economic strength, pointing out that, “per head of population we have more top universities than any other country in the world” (p. 5). It goes on to say that universities are critical to future economic growth in an independent Scotland:
Scottish universities are internationally renowned for the quality of their research. Around half of Scotland’s research has been assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent and Scotland ranks third in the world (after Switzerland and the Netherlands) and ahead of all the G8 countries in terms of citations per researcher. The excellence of research in Scotland’s universities contributes to Scotland’s international reputation for research and innovation. Investment in Research and Development (R&D) activity is a key component of driving innovation and supporting improved long-term economic performance. Currently, Scotland has over 620 organisations in the science and innovation sector employing over 30,000 staff. The continued expansion of this sector, after independence, will be vital to achieving sustainable economic growth (p. 188).
In the section focused on Education, Skills and Employment, the white paper makes an argument rooted in equity, positioning free higher education as an important - and Scottish - antidote to poverty. The paper highlights the government’s record on widening access, suggesting that independence is the best means to protect the free-tuition policy. Interestingly, and as many of the respondents pointed out, the arguments around the free-tuition fee policy being “at-risk” within the UK are somewhat attenuated and depend on narratives around so- called “consequentials” of the Barnett Formula - a reduction in education spending in the UK, for example, could lead to a reduction in net transfers to Scotland and increased financial pressure on the Scottish government as it attempts to maintain the expensive fee policy. As the paper notes, “the introduction of top-up fees in England substantially reduced government investment in higher education south of the border, and therefore reduced the size of Scotland’s allocated budget – although universities and their funding are devolved to Scotland” (Scotland’s Future, 2013, p. 185) However, the control over the tuition fee policy itself is already devolved, and can be preserved under existing constitutional arrangements. Said one respondent:
OK, well, just to say about the tuition fee thing, you see that doesn’t really play out too well in terms of an argument for independence anyway, because it’s quite clear
147 that under devolution, Scotland can have completely different policies from the rest of the UK anyway. How would it be different if we had independence? We already have completely different policies on tuition fees (anonymous respondent).
In an attempt to articulate a perhaps more aspirational narrative around how independence could solve existing problems in higher education, the white paper does not dwell on tuition fees but focuses on the economic importance of the sector and the international student issue. For a paper focused on sketching out the vision for a newly independent government, it spends a surprising amount of time on international students in particular:
Decisions by Westminster on student visas have restricted access for international students, posing a direct threat to Scotland’s universities and colleges. Not only do some prospective students find it difficult to obtain a visa to come and benefit from a Scottish education, but they are unable to use this education for the benefit of Scotland by remaining after graduation and playing an active part in the economy and culture of Scotland. As a result of this, Universities Scotland have said in relation to Westminster’s visa policy that “it is hard to see a bigger risk, or a more poisonous gun pointed at our collective success” (Scotland’s Future, 2013, p. 184).
In the white paper, higher education is framed in a way predicted by the nationalism- social policy nexus: as an area of distinctiveness, connected to the values of the political community and under threat by the central state such that only complete autonomy will suffice to protect it. Moreover, the relative strength of the sector is used as a proof-point for the economic sustainability and vitality of an independent state. The No campaign did not produce a comparable white paper, but was served by a variety of publications produced by the UK government and pan-UK organizations. These publications - and the campaign generally - sought to highlight the potential risks of independence to the higher education sector. This tactic is the converse, and perhaps inevitable, result of the Yes campaign highlighting the importance of the universities to Scotland’s society and economy. The No campaign, in effect, grants the point that universities are important and turns it back around on its opponents. Their basic question, repeated with other social policy areas, was “if the sector is so good, why would be put it at risk through the disruption and uncertainty of independence?” The Yes campaign created the framework for it to be criticized, as observed by one respondent:
But I think the No side arguments were in part framed by the Yes side positioning of universities as vitally important for an independent Scottish economy. The No side attempt was to say, well actually, universities could be in a really tough situation if you have independence, kind of undermining the credibility of the Yes side argument
148 (senior administrator, ancient university).
Despite the presence of education in the arguments of both the Yes and No campaigns, interview respondents expressed a fair amount of skepticism as to whether it was a motivating issue for Scottish referendum voters. Part of this was due to, again, the notion that much control over higher education had already been devolved, so there was not seen to be much at stake in this policy area.
Now given that higher education is a devolved matter, research councils and technology strategy board and BIS8 funding, that sort of thing to one side, the question is then begged, well actually, why are we talking about it in the context of an independence referendum (policy director, advocacy organization)?
Other respondents felt that higher education simply did not have enough urgency in the minds of referendum voters to influence their political choices. As the following selection of quotations illustrates, many respondents felt that higher education was an issue that could strengthen existing Yes votes, but did little to sway opinion:
Strengthen their resolve, perhaps, but not change their minds. So you either accept that [the Scottish Government] can’t afford it, without seeing the figures, or you think it’s wonderful and the Brits made a horrible decision and we’re going to be the last bastion of common sense. But you decided that before you heard the argument (anonymous respondent).
I never really go that impression that this was a sort of a really, really important issue. It was used quite a bit by the Yes campaign as part of the social justice agenda, here we are giving free education with the hint, well not a hint, that elsewhere they’re ripping everybody off and you’re coming out with debt and all that kind of stuff. And it was part of the general argument that was there about, same with the National Health Service….I suspect that from the education point of view, I think that had less mileage than the health service one, at the end of the day, in terms of impacting the voters. In fact, many of the voters, a certain number of voters couldn’t give a toss about higher education in the sense of it being a political issue. They might want their children to go to university, and it would be quite nasty to pay upfront fees, but they don’t pay anyway, they just go into debt (academic, Academics Together).
I mean if there had been some clear position that would say, you know, with this referendum outcome, universities will flourish, or universities will be obliged to turn away qualified Scottish applicants or some such, then it might have become. But that wasn’t the case. So I don’t think when people voted [on September 18, 2014], they
8 Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, a ministry of the UK Government until 2016, when it was merged with the Department of Energy and Climate Change to form the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. BIS had authority over higher education from 2009-2016.
149 were thinking about universities (principal, ancient university).
While respondents were generally skeptical whether higher education, on its own, was a consequential issue in the election campaign, an interesting dynamic emerged in the course of the key informant interviews regarding the role of the universities themselves in the debate. From the outset, the institutions were careful to stake out a neutral position. That is, there was no “institutional view” on the outcome of the referendum expressed on behalf of the institution by senior leaders. Individual academics, staff members and students were encouraged to express their own views, while the universities were meant to facilitate discussion and debate. Several respondents endorsed this approach:
I suppose that, organizationally, every institution has been strictly neutral. Quite rightly. As have we, as the collective body. They have done that for a variety of reasons. One of them is to be the place in civic society, or one of the places where the debate is fostered. And as you know, that has been very successful. So indeed, tuning into the coverage at various times during the course of the night, Scottish academics were there commenting on the voting process, etc. etc. I think that’s been very positive…But that need, drive, to be neutral I suppose means that universities corporately, if you like, were not at the vanguard of a campaign for a Yes or No (policy director, advocacy organization).
But the idea was repeatedly expressed that either universities were being politically canny in taking no position in the debate, lest they alienate the SNP, or that they were being effectively intimidated into silence by the Scottish Government. An example of the former perspective is contained in this statement by an interview respondent:
The Scottish universities have to survive, you know, regardless of the constitutional outcome of the referendum and I think that they were very aware of that. They have a very close relationship with the Scottish government currently, because Scotland is a small place and everyone knows each other, and Scottish universities are very much involved in policy decisions within the Scottish government, they didn't want to risk alienating a potential independent Scottish government if they came out on the side of the Union and could be punished for that…But I think in terms of personal relationships between Scottish university senior management and Scottish government it was absolutely essential for them to maintain neutrality” (academic, ancient university).
The view that universities were bullied into taking no position was expressed to varying degrees by several respondents, indicated in the following passages:
Any kind of political act would harm them. I would say that, but that was the feeling we had that they just didn’t want to get into the debate at all because there was too
150 much at stake, really, in the sense of offending the politicians. Simple as that (academic, Academics Together).
In all the universities, all the bosses of the universities were very quiet on this yes/no business. The story is, we’re supposed to be, as universities, we’re supposed to be objective in this. So I asked the guy, why? “Because we’re supposed to be.” Because the guy in front of the, the boss of Glasgow University, we used to work together in the same department. And he said, no, it’s incredible …We can’t say anything, I can’t say anything. We don’t want to irritate the government in case they get in (academic, Robbins university).
The press has stories about a Vice-Principal in Dundee who had been seen at some No campaign gathering for scientists of something, and a junior minister rang Dundee, the principal, “We hope you’re not letting that person teach any students.” And that was in the press. And you may have seen the thing photographed with our principal. She was interviewed two or three months ago by the Times, and a big spread about what research would be like in the future if there was independence. And absolutely, [Alex Salmond] was on the phone for 20 minutes bawling her out (anonymous respondent).
One respondent even suggested that the universities required their faculty to not speak out on the campaign, which, if true, would be a significant violation of academic freedom. Interestingly, this observation came from a strong supporter of the “Yes” side of the argument, who might otherwise be inclined to understate the intervention of the SNP in the autonomy of universities. Perhaps this is why this individual framed it as universities muzzling academics, not the government muzzling universities:
Now I know for certain, and I’ve spoken to plenty of people, universities told academics not to take a position on the referendum. So I know an academic in a university who told me early on, “We’ve been told not to get involved.” So let me get this straight. She was a poverty … she was an academic focused in poverty and social development. I said so let me get this straight, you’re not allowed to do analytical work on the state of poverty in Britain, model it for, “No, we’ve been told we’re not” (pro-independence campaigner).
Some respondents took issue with this framing, arguing that it was both inaccurate and unfair:
The universities had to remain neutral, Universities Scotland had to remain neutral, the Royal Society of Edinburgh had to remain neutral. All the Academies were supposed to remain neutral, and this itself became an issue. Because the group Academics Together, and I speak as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the British Academy, so I have an inside view of this. The group Academics Together started to say the universities should be speaking out for No, because obviously they’re going to lose out. And the only reason they’re not speaking out for
151 No is that they’ve been intimidated by the Scottish Government. Which is an extraordinary accusation, really utterly insulting, this accusation. Absolutely terrible (academic, ancient university)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the politicians themselves also denied any attempt to influence or intimidate the universities. Said one former cabinet minister:
I think [representatives of Academics Together] kept saying, you know, I had intimidated the university principals and threatened them or whatever. Actually I had one discussion with the university principals, very, very early on in a Universities Scotland forum, arranged by Universities Scotland where there was an open discussion about what they chose to do, and all of them felt that it was best that the institutions were neutral but individuals could do whatever they want (former SNP cabinet secretary).
Whether the SNP put pressure on the universities to be silent is difficult to assess. However, from the content analysis, there are two instances where these accusations seem to have broken into the mainstream press. First, in late 2013, a senior professor and administrator at the University of Dundee appeared at Better Together campaign event. The professor, who is a noted expert in Scottish history, presented pro-Union views during his remarks. This prompted the SNP Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Shona Robinson, to allegedly contact the university and insist “that he should remain neutral as he is involved in a project examining the big issues around independence” (Clegg, 2013). This event - which is the incident referenced in the quote above by an anonymous respondent - generated a fair amount of press coverage, with headlines like “Nats bid to silence No vote professor” and “Uni chief calls for free speech in wake of SNP bullying claim” (this latter title refers to the response to the issue by then-St. Andrew’s Principal, Louise Richardson). It was also an opportunity for opposition politicians to score points. Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Kezia Dugdale, said:
That a government minister contacts a university to complain about an academic expressing their honest opinion because it doesn't fit with the SNP's policy is frankly sinister. The idea of a Scotland where you can't express your views if they conflict with the government is terrifying (as quoted in Clegg, 2013).
Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Willie Rennie, lauded the principal of St. Andrews for criticizing the SNP, saying:
Louise Richardson is right to send a warning shot across the bow of those who want to silence academics in the independence debate. I would urge other principals to
152 follow her lead. Our much cherished academic freedoms must not be the victim of an increasingly desperate Nationalist campaign (as quoted in Roden, 2013).
The Better Together Campaign also seized the opportunity to criticize the SNP:
This is a welcome intervention from one of Scotland's most respected figures. Bullying and attempts to silence people by the SNP we have seen this week have no place in our country. Everyone, no matter what their view is, should be allowed to speak freely without fear of a government minister complaining to their employers (as quoted in Roden, 2013).
In September 2014, just days before the referendum vote, the Daily Telegraph reported on a second incident where the SNP First Minister Alex Salmond had called St. Andrews Principal Louise Richardson to demand “she clarify remarks she made about the consequences of leaving the UK in a conversation described as "loud and heated”” (Riley- Smith, 2014). Richardson had commented publicly that the possible loss of access to UK research funding post-independence would be disastrous for Scottish Universities. The Telegraph also published a series of emails between Salmond’s staff and the university suggesting that the SNP was writing a statement under Richardson’s name that would walk back some of her comments: "The Scottish Government has risen to the challenge on fees, in stark contrast to the government south of the border, and I'm sure they can rise to the challenge on research funding as well." Richardson ultimately rejected the statement. The SNP’s political opponents again used the opportunity to highlight the alleged bullying tactics of the SNP. Said a spokesperson for Scottish Labour:
The dogs in the street know that the SNP has used the power of the Scottish Government to bully and intimidate anyone who doesn't agree with them. They have abused their power and implicated senior civil servants on the way. What has been happening secretly as the First Minister and his advisers bully and intimidate, we now see on the streets as the Yes campaign tries to bully Scotland into submission (as quoted in Riley-Smith, 2014).
The case at the University of Dundee could have possibly been written off as a junior minister going off message and acting without the SNP’s consent, but the Richardson incident - involving the First Minister and his senior aides - is much harder to dismiss. From these stories, it does appear that the SNP attempted to exert some level of message control over the universities during the Referendum Campaign. But whether that was sufficient to cow the entire sector is debatable. One respondent, who favoured the neutral stance staked out by the universities, argued that all of the arguments about intimidation were an attempt by the No
153 campaign to politicize the universities when they had decided to stay neutral. This approach contrasted with the tactics of the Yes campaign:
But [Academics for Yes] never tried to politicize the universities. They never said the universities needed to be on our side. But the No people did, they tried to hijack the whole system and say the Royal Society, the universities of Scotland, should be speaking out for No. And this caused a huge amount of tension within the sector (academic, ancient university).
Staking out a neutral position on a political question while encouraging debate among the members of its community is a fairly standard practice by universities around the world. Louise Richardson’s comments on the possible loss of research funding was one of only two examples of university principals breaking cover during the campaign. The other was a blog post by Ferdinand von Prondzynski, principal of Robert Gordon University, who described Scotland’s relatively low rate of innovation and entrepreneurship as a symptom of “national dependency culture” and that independence could unlock “local initiative and enterprise” (Von Prondzynski, 2014). Von Prondzynski had also chaired the Scottish Government’s controversial Review of Higher Education Governance, a fact that again emphasizes the rather small and familiar Scottish higher education policy community. Whatever the reason, Scottish universities did, for the most part, keep to a neutral position during the referendum campaign and attempt to facilitate informed debate on the referendum. One respondent - who works outside of the higher education sector - was skeptical of the overall impact of this engagement:
So universities did nothing but leave a massive space which was filled by a ragtag army of individuals and small groups who took on the role that you might have expected the university sector to do…If there is an institution that has led intellectual development of Scotland, it’s definitely not a university and it’s probably Facebook because that was the dissemination method…I’m walking out [of a campaign] meeting and [an attendee] came up to me and he said, “Say honestly, what do you think the 10-year bond situation will be in Scotland borrowing if we get independence?” And I was like fucking hell. I mean seriously, most of the political journalists I know wouldn’t be able to ask that question with conviction, and just how did you… he says, “I’ve been doing a lot of reading up on policy…You know people share links in Facebook.” That’s what happened. Everybody educated themselves through social media linking to almost anything apart from Scottish universities (pro- independence campaigner).
Considering the referendum campaign as a whole, higher education policy was not a persuasive issue in the campaign, and universities - either by choice or through political
154 pressure - remained steadfastly neutral (with a few exceptions) throughout the run-up to the 2014 vote. When used by the Yes campaign, higher education tended to be part of a basket of social policies that were considered points of national pride, connected to distinctly Scottish values and thought to be under threat by the Westminster parliament. The No side, for their part, attempted to highlight the risks of independence to the higher education sector, a tactic that appears to have been successful in defusing the aspirational, values-driven appeals made by the pro-independence camp. This focus on risk also helped to give two higher education issues enhanced profile during the campaign - research funding and tuition fees paid by students from the EU.
Role of Higher Education in the Debate - Research Funding
The novelty of research funding policy playing a signified role in the referendum debate was noted by several respondents, typified by the following statement:
But it’s curious nevertheless that it has become a matter of public debate. Why people unconnected currently with universities would regard that as interesting, it is curious. It’s interesting though because while it is unexpected to me that they would, it is actually good that they do, and the reason for that is because the development of a research agenda or questions about what a research agenda there should be and therefore what should be funded, those are questions of real significance to the economic, social, cultural development of an emerging nation. And they’re vital in fact. But mostly, in most countries and most environments, you wouldn’t expect that to get any airtime (principal, post-92 university).
This comment reflects the reality that in normal electoral politics, research funding often attracts very little attention. It is an issue of interest to a very small segment of the population- researchers, university administrators and policymakers concerned with economic development. But the airtime received by research funding during the referendum campaign is undeniable. In the content analysis sample, 29 per cent of the stories within the overall analytic sample concerned research funding in some form. Within the subset of articles that looked at higher education policy in depth, 42 per cent focused on the funding of research in post-independence Scotland. The difference here is statistically significant (p<0.01), suggesting that stories with a substantive focus on HE were more likely to be about research funding than stories where the HE policy was mentioned in passing. Thus, where research funding was raised as an issue, it was more likely to receive greater scrutiny. The coverage of this issue was fairly consistent throughout the referendum campaign, averaging about five articles per month. However, this number began to rise towards the end of the
155 campaign, peaking at 11 articles in September 2014. This increase suggests that research funding gained some traction in the latter phase of the campaign. Many respondents observed that Scotland tends to “punch above its weight” in terms of research funding, bringing in more research income than would be predicted than its share of the UK population (there is reason to doubt this claim, which will be explored in detail below). This view was also echoed in the content analysis - almost every article (save for one) that mentioned the relative success of Scotland’s university system also referenced research funding, and this relationship was statistically significant at the p<0.01 level. A former SNP minister claimed that the Yes campaign had predicted that research funding and tuition fees would be issues in the campaign:
I think we always anticipated that there would be parts of higher education that were sensitive and sensitive in the debate. And I think we rightly identified very early on that those would be research and would be tuition fees. There were other things that cropped up but those were very important (former SNP cabinet secretary).
This observation likely depends on hindsight, but fees and research funding are also areas that were profiled in the white paper and carried some measure of post-independence risk, creating a focus point for debate. The issue turned on whether an independent Scotland would be able to continue its membership in the UK’s research councils and continue to enjoy support from the large, UK-based medical charities. As demonstrated in chapter five, this funding is essential to the research enterprise in Scottish universities. In 2013, the REF and Research Councils accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the total funding available to Scottish researchers, with the medical charities contributing an additional 13 per cent. Nearly three quarters of research funding in Scotland was therefore linked to the UK and potentially at risk after independence. The SNP, and by extension, the Yes campaign, contended that it would be advantageous to both Scotland and the UK to continue this relationship. As argued in the Scottish Government white paper on independence:
The UK operates as a ‘common research area’, ensuring no barriers to collaborative research and access to facilities for researchers throughout the UK. We recognise the benefits – for the academic community, business and research charities – of maintaining long-term stability in research funding and systems that support initiatives of scale and researchers working together across boundaries. It is clearly in the interests of both Scotland and the rest of the UK to maintain a common research area including shared research councils, access to facilities and peer review (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 201).
156 Scotland has a hybrid devolved/reserved model of research funding, where research funds secured as part of the REF are contributed through the Scottish Government’s devolved budget and disbursed through the Scottish Funding Council, while UK research funding councils contributed to universities directly. As the SNP points out, Scottish citizens already contribute to the funding of the research councils through the UK tax base. In an independent Scotland, the SNP suggested that it would continue to fund the REF portion of research directly through its budget. On the research councils, the white paper proposes negotiating:
a fair funding formula for Scotland’s contribution based on population share but taking reasonable account of the fact that the amount of research funding received by Scottish institutions from the Research Councils may reflect higher or lower levels of funding (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 203).
The white paper goes on to suggest that such a funding arrangement with the research councils would actually be beneficial, as it “would create more transparency and clearer accountability around our investment, enabling Scottish interests to be better and more consistently reflected in the identification of Research Council priorities” (Ibid., p. 203). This proposal was a best-of-both-worlds scenario: Scotland would preserve pre-independence levels of research funding while asserting more control over the projects supported by those funds. Predictably, the No campaign - and its proxies - were not content to allow this rosy picture to go unchallenged. The rebuttal came through several channels. First, the UK’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills published a paper in November 2013, which poured cold water on the notion of the continued participation of Scotland in the UK’s research area, stating simply, “national governments are responsible for funding national research” (dBIS, 2013, p. 35). In other words, if Scotland became independent, the UK government would no longer be obliged to continue funding research at its universities. The report goes on to state:
While there are examples of international shared pots of research funding, they tend to be on a relatively small scale, for example the Nordic countries share a pot of approximately £13 million. There is little precedent for sharing or replicating a system on the scale of the current UK funding streams across international borders. In the event of independence, this single strategic and highly integrated research framework would be likely to diverge as an independent Scottish state set and delivered its own research priorities. Research collaborations between the continuing UK and an independent would be international collaborations associated with levels of risk not present in domestic collaborations (dBIS, 2013, p. iii).
157 Here, the No campaign strategy of highlighting risk to valued institutions is explicit. It was an effective attack largely because the white paper had spent so much time emphasizing the success Scotland’s universities enjoy in securing UK research funding. A second example of the No campaign attack on the research funding issue came through Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, who published an open letter suggesting that Independence would damage Scotland’s strong performance in research. The letter, which was also signed by the presidents of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences, stated:
As Presidents of UK-wide academies, we wish to draw attention to just one area which we regard as critical. That is research, in which Scotland punches well above its weight internationally. Many people involved in research in Scotland are concerned about this issue, but some appear to feel inhibited in expressing their views.
Research requires resources, permeability, interactions, critical mass and a highly skilled workforce, to drive improvements in the quality of lives and a modern knowledge-based economy. Scotland has long done particularly well through its access to UK research funding. If it turns out that an independent Scotland has to form its own science and research budget, maintaining these levels of research spending would cost the Scottish taxpayer significantly more.
Moreover, if Scotland is separated from the rest of the UK, the strong links and collaborations which exist in the current open system would be put at risk, with any new machinery put in place to attempt to restore them likely to be expensive and bureaucratic.
We believe that if separation were to occur, research not only in Scotland but also in the rest of the UK would suffer. However, research in Scotland would be more vulnerable and there could be significant reductions in range, capability and critical mass. (Nurse et al, open correspondence, July 6, 2014).
The letter, which received significant coverage in the press, presents a textbook example of the risk-highlighting tactic employed by the No campaign. It first seeks to profile the success of the research enterprise in Scottish universities (“punches well above its weight internationally”); argues that Scotland is currently advantaged by existing arrangements within the UK; and then suggests that Scottish research would suffer under independence. It even hints at the allegations that pro-Union sentiment had been suppressed within the research sector. Coming from the presidents of the UK’s most prestigious science, medical and arts and social sciences societies, themselves lauded researchers, this critique hit particularly hard.
158 Whenever this issue was raised, one statistic was frequently cited - that Scotland does disproportionately well in the share of funding it receives, relative to populations size or contribution to GDP. Scottish institutions received slightly over 13 per cent of research council funding, despite having only 8.4 per cent of the population and eight per cent of GDP (dBIS, 2013, p. 15). When funding to Research Council Institutes, infrastructure, studentships and fellowships is included, Scotland secured £307 million, but only 10.7 per cent of the total UK share. Not surprisingly, the SNP Government chose to use this lower percentage in its campaign materials, relative to its own calculation of 8.3 per cent population share (Scottish Government, 2014, p. 8). But the basic point was essentially conceded- Scottish universities did indeed punch above their weight, and the loss of UK-wide funding, if unaddressed, would be harmful. Losing £257 million in UK research council funding would be a crippling blow to the Scottish universities, so a response was required. The importance of the issue was underlined when the Scottish Government took the unusual step of issuing a supplemental white paper entirely focused on the research funding question. It advanced the SNP’s preferred position, that Scotland would continue to participate as partners in the UK research area, and would continue to have access to funding distributed by the research councils. However, it added a caveat - should Scottish access to the research councils be blocked, “we will ensure that existing levels of Government investment (through the Scottish Funding Council and the Research councils) are at least maintained” (Scottish Government, 2014, p. 5). This is a significant and potentially expensive commitment - that universities will be kept whole even if they lose access to UK-wide funding. The white paper goes on to say:
We will further ensure that there is no adverse funding impact from Scotland’s transition to independence and indeed believe that independence will bring opportunities for increased research funding through collaborations with the private sector and with partners in Europe and beyond facilitated by access to additional financial levers and our greater presence and profile on the world stage as an independent nation state (Scottish Government, 2014, p. 5).
Again, a familiar argument - not only will the success of Scottish universities be maintained, but they will actually be better off in an independent Scotland. The Department of Business, Innovations and Skills paper suggests that an independent Scotland would need to spend £219 million to replace lost research council funding, on top of the £251 million already contributed out from the Scottish Government’s devolved budget through the Scottish Funding Council (dBIS, 2013: 17). This increase- nearly double - would have been difficult
159 to cover for a newly independent government with many competing financial priorities. Some of this expense would have been offset by an independent Scotland’s new control over tax revenue, as money previously contributed to the UK research councils through taxation could be kept within Scotland and invested into research. Since Scotland takes in more research funding than its population share, there would still likely be a large gap. The Scottish Government’s assertion that this hole could be filled by increasing contributions from the EU, international partners and industry did not gain much traction in the debate. Many in the Yes camp took issue with the figures on which the No campaign constructed the research funding critique. One respondent, active with the Yes campaign, said:
So if you take a running average of years, and if you take all research council expenditure, not just competitively won research grants, and then you compare it with the size of the university sector in Scotland which we can measure most easily by the number of academics, it actually turns out that Scotland is marginally under-funded. It works out that Scotland is 10.6 per cent of the funds, and the population is 10.9. I would say that’s just noise in the system, that just means it’s fairly equally spread. But it became a big issue, 13 per cent versus 8.3 per cent (anonymous respondent).
The pro-independent campaign group, Academics for Yes, produced a thorough refutation of assertion that Scottish university research would be worse off under independence. It first suggests that the Scotland’s over-performance relative to population share is somewhat exaggerated:
[A letter signed by pro-Union researchers] cites a figure for grants, studentships and fellowships of 13.1% but this is for 2012/13. The figure varies from year to year and is, on average over the last eight years, somewhat lower at 12.3%. This should really be compared against the size of the university sector, and Scotland has 10.9% of full- time academic staff, reflecting an investment in universities that started long before the Union. The difference, then, is 1.4% and this reflects differential quality in open competition for research funds (Academics for Yes, 2014).
Note the phrase, “reflecting an investment in universities that started long before the Union,” which seems to be a nod to the Scottish tradition of higher education. More significantly, this passage suggests that not only is the gap between Scotland’s population and its share of research funding much smaller than alleged by the No campaign, but is the result of the comparative quality of researchers within Scottish universities. In other words, the disproportionate share is not due to the benefits of Union, but rather the success of individual researchers in competing for grants.
160 Academics for Yes also points out that the 13.1/8.3 per cent figures cited by the No campaign is based on grants, studentships and fellowships. Examining research council funding to infrastructure, their analysis suggests that Scotland is significantly under-funded relative to population, receiving an eight-year average of 7.6 per cent of funding. Adding this together with the direct grants - and echoing the Scottish Government’s analysis - Scotland received 10.6 per cent of total research council funding, against a 10.9 per cent share of the number of academics in the UK (these are the figure referenced by the anonymous respondent quoted above). In this analysis,
against a 9.2% share of GDP leaves a potential funding gap for a Scottish government of around £35m, which ironically is equal to the annual loss of funding to Scotland from cuts in research councils since 2009/10, and which would be easily covered by no longer having to contribute to nuclear weapons and major infrastructure projects in London and the south (Academics for Yes, 2014).
The argument around cuts to research funding is important. Academics for Yes argued that overall cuts to public-sector spending in the UK - which they place at £25 billion - reduces overall revenue for the devolved Scottish government due to the knock-on effect of the Barnett Formula. This reduction to overall revenue hurts research by creating “a substantial reduction in funds available for universities in Scotland,” and therefore decreasing the availability of funding earmarked for research. The Academics for Yes analysis suggests that the actual budget for research - and especially scientific research - is being reduced across the UK. Using figures from the UK’s Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), they suggest that nearly £1.1 billion had been lost from the science budget by 2015-16. This counterargument concludes by stating that, in fact, Union is a bigger threat to university research funding than independence. While the case put forward by Academics for Yes is certainly debatable, it does raise serious questions about the narrative put forward by the No campaign around research funding. However, the Academics for Yes analysis received far less traction in the media than the No argument, suggesting at the very least that the strategy of highlighting the possible risks of independence was more successful at breaking into the media narrative. Among the individuals interviewed for this study, the question of research funding in the context of the referendum campaign proved to be highly divisive. Not surprisingly, respondents’ views on the research issue corresponded with their overall views on independence, to the extent that they were expressed in the interviews. Said one pro-Union politician:
161 It was either naive or disingenuous to pretend that because things worked perfectly well at the moment, then it was in everybody’s interest to make sure it continued working in a similar vein post-independence. The higher education, the university sector is as cutthroat and competitive as any, where there’s mutual self-interest, I dare say there is a great deal of collaborative action, but where there are opportunities to steal a march on other universities, notably I would have thought in relation to research funding, then I just cannot conceive of a situation where it would be tolerable for this sort of proportion of the overall UK Research Council grant going out with the remaining UK after independence (Member of Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrats).
Similarly, a pro-Union academic stated:
So our argument was, if the Scottish Government, well, what the Scottish government was proposing to do was to keep the system as it is but not, clearly, you couldn’t run it the same way because now it’s two foreign countries running a common research policy for their top research funding, for which there is no international parallel at all. And how would you work that in practice? And my view was that, in practice, it wouldn’t work, or it couldn’t work (academic, Academics Together).
Another pro-Union academic made this observation:
There was that kind of feeling that there was a huge amount to be lost, and given the fact that higher education is a very big part of the Scottish economy and society, higher education for a small country like ours, to have such a successful higher education system is very, very important. Both economically and socially. So, it was actually quite important for the No campaign to say, this very important part of our society will be under threat if we become independent. So, that was part of the reason why I think the whole issue of research came up to the surface in a way that, as you say, you might not have expected otherwise (academic, post-92 university).
On the other side of the argument, there was a strong sense that the focus on research funding was more a question of politics than actual evidence:
So that was a classic case of taking a political position based on alleged data, which was manifestly misleading. And you get the curious position where academics, and particularly scientists, who one would expect to deal with evidence and analysis, when presented with the evidence and the analysis they were not prepared to change their position (anonymous respondent).
Said a former SNP minister:
I pay a lot of tribute to Academics for Yes who did extremely well on the attempts by the No side to make these things into crippling issues, which I don’t think succeeded. I think that surprised some people, because I think some of the academics on the No side thought they had game, set and match when they started out and even the hardest
162 meeting I think I did which was to go and speak to the Royal Society of Edinburgh about research funding. I think one could describe them as having a vested interest in the matter (former SNP cabinet secretary).
Ultimately, the research funding controversy is emblematic of the kind of debate that occurs in an electoral contest that is concerned with the future of the political community. Both sides will seek to create a vision for this future that suits their political orientation - aspirational and inspirational on the one side, cloudy and full of risk on the other. But as one respondent put it, “these are questions I guess that people will need to, we don’t have answers to this because we never have answers to what’s happening in the future. We can all guess, but we never know” (president, post-92 university). Debates about the future are ultimately about who presents a vision that seems most credible and resonant to voters. On balance, the research funding issue appears to have helped the No campaign impugn the credibility of the pro-independence camp. Whether this critique was fair is another question; there is certainly good reason to question the No campaign’s assessment of the risk. But it did appear to gain more traction than the Yes argument. Still, on its own, research funding was unlikely to change many minds. As one respondent, who was deeply vested in the debate, observed,
The average voter, who cares? You can say Medical research, maybe, they don’t want it to be threatened. Why should they understand even the broad details of how it works, they just assume it happens (academic, Academics Together).
The issue was likely very persuasive among academics, and there is some evidence to suggest that, as a whole, those working in universities were skeptical of independence. A survey done by the Times Higher Education (THE) showed that 55 per cent of academics and administrators planned to vote “No” in the referendum, and 55.5 per cent thought staying in the UK would be better for Scottish universities (Matthews, 2014). This result alone is not so remarkable, given that it is roughly in line with how all of Scotland voted - 55 per cent for No and 45 per cent for Yes. The interesting finding of the THE survey was the split between faculty in STEM fields and those in the arts, humanities and social sciences - 68.6 per cent of STEM academics planned to vote against independence, while a small majority of those in the arts and social sciences planned to vote “Yes” - 44.1 per cent vs. 42.9 per cent (Matthews, 2014). One possible interpretation of this result is that STEM researchers are far more dependent on research council funding than those in the social sciences and humanities, by dint of their need for expensive facilities and equipment. The potential loss of research
163 funding was likely far more worrisome for this group, which could explain their opposition. In any case, beyond the universities themselves, it is hard to imagine research funding being a politically persuasive argument on its own. But it was part of a sustained - and largely successful - attempt to portray independence as fraught with risk and uncertainty. In the end, this framing carried the day.
Role of Higher Education in the Debate - Tuition Fees
Given the political significance of the tuition issue in Scotland since Devolution, one would expect it to play at least some role in the referendum campaign. Indeed, the Scottish Government gave significant room to tuition in their independence white paper. The paper continues the SNP’s framing their policy as the option most consistent with Scotland’s values:
Free education for those able to benefit from it is a core part of Scotland’s educational tradition and the values that underpin our educational system. One of the major achievements of devolved government in Scotland has been to restore this right to Scottish domiciled undergraduate students” (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 198).
Again, it is not clear that the policy of free tuition fees for Scottish students was particularly salient for referendum voters. In a 2013 poll, 23 per cent of respondents indicated they would be more likely to vote “Yes” to independence if they believed that would protect free university tuition. Conversely, 17 per cent said that this would make no difference to their “Yes” vote, while 43 per cent indicated that it would not change their decision to vote “No” (ScotCen, 2013). From this, we can surmise that while the free-tuition policy may have helped shore up existing Yes support, it did not do much to change the minds of No voters. As indicated previously, the free-tuition policy is likely most effective when included in a basket of policies - many of which involve universal benefits - that resonate with notions of Scottish identity and distinctiveness from the auld enemy, England. In the sample of articles analyzed for this study, 70.6 per cent mention tuition fees in some form. Unlike research funding, tuition fees were slightly more likely to be raised in articles where higher education was mentioned in passing, with 76 per cent of articles in this category containing some reference to tuition fees, as compared to 63.5 per cent of articles that dealt with higher education in a substantive way. This difference is significant at the p<0.05 level, and reflects a tendency on the media coverage to mention the free tuition fee policy as an example of the SNP’s initiatives, but to not spend much time unpacking the
164 particulars of the policy itself. Of the articles that mentioned tuition fees, 89 per cent also referenced policy arrangements in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, significant at the p<0.01 level. The point of these comparisons was not clear in the data, as no significant relationship existed between stories about tuition fees and the presentation of a favourable or unfavourable view of Scottish policy relative to other UK jurisdictions. There was statistical significance (p<0.05) in the relationship between articles that mentioned tuition fees in general terms (i.e. not about the specific issue of tuition fees for rUK students) and reference to traditional Scottish values - 80.9 per cent of articles about tuition fees also referred to values, compared to 64.9 per cent of articles that were not about tuition fees but otherwise dealt with values. This evidence suggests that discussion of tuition fees does edge towards emotive, values-based political discussion, but this relationship was not an overwhelming feature of the data gathered for this study. Significantly, the SNP’s white paper devotes considerable attention to the policy of charging tuition fees to students from the rest of the UK. As discussed in chapter five, tuition is free for Scottish-domiciled students and students from outside the UK but within the EU. The EU requires member states - and constituent jurisdictions within those states - to charge EU students the domestic student fee. But students from the rest of the UK - England, Wales and Northern Ireland - are all required to pay the UK-wide tuition maximum of £9,000. The white paper justifies this policy as follows:
the Westminster Government has pursued an increasingly market-driven approach to higher education, increasing tuition fees for undergraduate students to up to £9,000 a year. This divergence in funding policy between Scotland and England, and resulting disparity in the cost of securing a university education, creates a huge financial incentive for students from England to study in Scotland. In that context, and to ensure Scottish students remain able to study at Scottish higher education institutions, this Government had little option but to allow Scottish institutions to set their own tuition fees for students from the rest of the UK at a rate no higher than the maximum annual tuition fee rate charged to such students by universities elsewhere in the UK” (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 198).
The policy is framed as a move to ensure that Scottish university spaces are not overwhelmed by students from elsewhere in the UK, but there is no question that fees paid by UK students are a significant source of revenue for the universities. Since funding for Scottish-domiciled students is set by the Scottish Government, there is an effective cap on the number of Scottish students that can be enrolled. The only revenue flexibility enjoyed by the Scottish universities is found in rUK-domiciled and international (non-EU) students.
165 The policy is also unpopular. As described in chapter five, The National Union of Students and UK politicians have both voiced their opposition. Even SNP politicians acknowledge the arrangement is not ideal:
There has been a lot of resentment south of the border about the tuition fees and the fact that we charge students and the rest of the UK full tuition fees. I very much regret that. I would love that that didn’t happen. But we are simply, the Scottish government was simply not funded to do anything else, and we had to therefore operate that policy (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
While the free tuition policy itself did not become a central issue during the referendum, this policy of charging full fees to rUK students became one of the two higher education- related issues to bubble up in the course of the campaign. The pattern is similar to the research funding issue: the Scottish government profiles the issue in the white paper, suggesting that the arrangement will continue post-Independence. The No campaign, looking to highlight the risk and uncertainty of independence, suggest that the Yes campaign’s assessment is overly optimistic. Part of the SNP’s post-independence plan was for Scotland to very quickly re-enter the European Union as an independent state, citing existing regulations that would allow it, as a former part of a member state, to bypass the process for new members. This position was extensively criticized by the No campaign, who suggested that this interpretation of EU law was incorrect. Scotland would thus have a long route back into the EU, losing invaluable access to the common market in the meantime. This argument, which was a significant and persuasive issue within the context of the referendum, became somewhat ironic two years later when the UK voted to leave the European Union (a development that will be addressed in chapter nine). But even if Scotland was able to quickly rejoin the EU, the No campaign argued that the current tuition arrangement in regard to rUK students would be illegal under EU rules. The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) requires that EU students be charged the same rate as domestic students. Post-Independence, the UK would be, in effect, a foreign country and, as an EU member, its students would also be entitled to free tuition. In addition to the risk of UK students flooding Scottish universities, a significant amount of revenue would be removed from the system. Academics Together, for example, pegged this amount at £150 million (Riley-Smith, 2014). In the sample of articles examined for this study, 40.6 per cent mentioned the rUK tuition fees issue. Articles on this topic accounted for 55.7 per cent of the articles that mentioned tuition fees in any context, and interestingly, this particular issue was more likely to appear in articles that dealt with higher education in a substantive way (significant at the p<0.01 level).
166 Whereas tuition fees generally were more likely to appear as a policy example - almost a shorthand for describing the SNP’s policy preferences - the rUK tuition issue was something that received focused attention in the sample. Again, unlike general mentions of tuition fee policy, there was no significant relationship between references to Scottish values and articles that looked at the rUK fee issue, suggesting that this issue was examined in functional terms. Not surprisingly, there was a strong relationship between articles that referred to the rUK fee issue and also compared Scottish policies to those in the rest of the UK (p<0.01). Describing this particular issue necessarily involves explaining the differential fee structures between the different UK jurisdictions, hence the statistical association. Articles originating outside of Scotland were more likely to address the rUK fees issues - 63 per cent of articles on the rUK issue came from English publications, and this relationship was significant within the sample. Also significant at the p<0.01 level, articles that featured viewpoints that were, on balance, opposed to independence were more likely to discuss the rUK fee issue. Articles in this category accounted for 43 per cent of the stories on the rUK tuition fees, compared to just nine per cent of stories that featured viewpoints favourable to independence. While not definitive, this observation suggests that the rUK fee issue was being deployed primarily by the No campaign. Indeed, this overall pattern of coverage suggests that the No campaign was successful at using the rUK fee issue to profile the potential negative consequences of independence. It may also indicate that the rUK fee issue was a useful way of neutralizing the tuition fee issue generally by dominating the debate and pushing the discussion away from questions of values - the SNP’s electoral strength - to more prosaic discussions of revenue and the potential harm to Scottish universities were they to lose access to fees paid by rUK students. Similar to the pattern observed in the research-funding issue, interview respondents tended to view this issue through their own political preferences. Those who favoured a pro- Union perspective typically believed that the SNP’s plan to charge tuition fees to rUK student post-independence would not, in fact, be allowed under EU rules:
EU lawyers said that this would be highly unlikely to happen, because that would be discrimination on grounds of nationality. Right now we have the strange situation where our UK students incur the debt to study in Scotland, while EU students study for free. So most people think, most lawyers think, that post-independence and EU membership, it would not be possible for our universities to charge our UK students, they’d have to treat them the same as other EU nationals…So that will be a huge issue in terms of the economy at the moment, because at the moment St. Andrews and Edinburgh attracts a very large proportion, about a third of students, are coming from
167 the UK and paying full fees (anonymous respondent).
What is striking about respondents expressing the view is the very similar way in which they describe it, suggesting that they were either working from shared speaking points or that the messaging was particularly resonant with those working in the universities. Said another respondent:
The SNP again will say, there will be no problems, we will negotiate a special deal and we will continue to charge students from the rest of the UK, £9000, and that very important income flow for the Scottish universities, at least some of the Scottish universities, will be retained. Look, all of the evidence from Europe, again I’m sure you’re aware of this, all the evidence from the European Court was that it was extremely unlikely that Scotland would manage to maintain that, and so it was felt very important that we present that argument very clearly, and present clearly the potential threat to what has become an important income stream for many of the Scottish universities (academic, post-92 university).
One respondent made the interesting observation that the EU/UK tuition fee issue was created by the SNP’s unique approach to the policy. Whereas a more nuanced policy, like the Welsh model where fees are charged but students receive generous grants to study anywhere in the UK, would have been permissible under independence, the free-tuition policy gave the SNP very little flexibility:
It’s absolutely true that if Scotland became an independent state, then other UK students would be able to come to Scottish universities for free. And I think there’s an easy way out of that, which is to adopt the Welsh system, because EU students don’t get free tuition in Wales. But the SNP was not prepared to do that, because Salmond had given this pledge, no fees and I will allow myself no wiggle room by charging them fees and then giving them grants to make up the fees. I won’t do that, because that’s against my pledge. So they created problems for themselves there (academic, ancient university).
While most respondents viewed the EU/UK tuition fee issue as a question of revenue and financial sustainability, one university president cast it in decidedly different terms:
I mean the tuition fees for rest-of-UK students, you could see why that would become an issue- because it reflects broader questions about national identity and how this country, Scotland, would treat and does treat people from the rest of the UK (university principal, post-92 institution).
This quotation hints at another issue carried within the UK tuition question, and present in all aspects of the independence debate: what will the post-independence relationship look
168 like? Given the centuries of shared history, it is hard to imagine an independent Scotland and the continuing UK immediately treating one another as foreign countries. As with research funding, it is not unreasonable to expect that the relationship between the two would be closer than between two countries that had no history of close political, economic and social ties. In effect, the SNP’s argument on research funding was exactly this - we’ve got a good thing going here, and there’s no reason why it couldn’t continue post-Independence. On the UK tuition issue, they had to adopt a more negative variation of this argument, putting forward the position that close proximity, shared language and similar qualifications framework put Scotland’s universities at risk if rUK students were allowed to study for free. The prospect of zero tuition fees at Scottish universities would be so enticing, the argument goes, that the institutions would be swamped by UK students, crowding out those from Scottish households. Quoted in the Scotsman, Mike Russell, then the cabinet secretary for higher education, claimed:
Presently, only 1.5 per cent of students domiciled in the rest of the UK study in Scotland. If that total were to rise to 10 per cent – and scoping of the issue suggests the number might go higher – then 80 per cent of existing university places in Scotland would be filled by those students. Right now, around 88 per cent of Scottish students remain in Scotland to work after graduation, so the numbers of Scottish graduates available to Scottish employers would fall dramatically and would not be adequately replaced by the 36 per cent of graduates from the rest of the UK or Europe who stay after studying in Scotland” (Marshall, 2014).
The “fee refugees” scenario posits that, under EU rules, charging fees to rUK students to prevent negative outcomes to Scottish citizens would be permissible. Scotland’s Future states:
Our policy is based on the unique and exceptional position of Scotland in relation to other parts of the UK, on the relative size of the rest of the UK, on the fee differential, on our shared border and common language, on the qualifications structure, on the quality of our university sector and on the high demand for places. We believe that these distinctive characteristics will enable us to justify objectively the continuation of our current policy in a way [that] is consistent with the principles of free movement across the EU as a whole and which is compatible with EU requirements” (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 200)
This position is based on legal challenges mounted by Belgium and Austria, where restrictions were placed on EU nationals seeking a place in each country’s higher education system. Both cases revolved around limiting the number of foreign students - Germans in Austria, French students in Belgium - seeking a place in domestic medical schools,
169 potentially displacing local students. The worry was that these students would return to their country of origin following graduation, therefore potentially undermining the number of trained professionals in their domestic health systems (Macpherson and McIver, 2014). The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled against Austria and Belgium in these cases, but both proceeded to implement restrictive quotas anyway. A “letter of formal notice” from the ECJ was issued to both countries, who responded with additional justifications. The ECJ then suspended its formal notice and the case for five years “to give the Belgian [and Austrian] authorities the opportunity to provide supplementary data supporting their argument that the restrictive measures they have imposed are necessary and proportionate” (European Union, 2007, as quoted in Macpherson and McIver, 2014). This five-year suspension was extended in 2012 until 2016. In 2017, the European Commission announced that it was dropping its infringement proceedings against Austria, stating that, “the Commission has concluded that the quota system in place for medical studies is justified and proportionate in order to protect the Austrian public health system and can be maintained” (European Commission, 2017). While this judgement arrived too late to cast any light on the independence debate in Scotland, it does appear possible to impose certain restrictions on EU students within a given jurisdiction, provided a sufficient justification can be made. However, it should be noted here that both Austria and Belgium had imposed quotas, not differential fees, so that aspect of the proposed Scottish approach would likely need to be tested in court. Within the independence campaign, the No campaign alleged that it would be highly unlikely that the European Commission would allow indirect discrimination against UK students in an independent Scotland. Said one respondent:
And for all Mike Russell’s sort of huffing and puffing about discussions he was having with the [European] Commission, which he’d been having since 2007 and got absolutely nowhere, for all he pointed to other member states who had similar issues and therefore would be partners in crime in those discussions, notably Austria in relation to Germany. The fundamentals of free movement and equal treatment were high bars that they never looked like anywhere close to getting over. And so that looked like leaving a black hole somewhere in the region of £120/130 million at current levels of cross-border student flows (Member of Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrats).
This idea enjoyed some traction in the media, particularly papers published in England. In January of 2014, representatives of Androulla Vassiliou, the EU’s education commissioner, made statements to reporters that, “European treaties prohibited any member state from discriminating against other EU citizens on conditions of access to education, including
170 tuition fees” (Carrell, 2014). This received coverage in the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, two of the UK’s largest dailies, as well as in several Scottish papers. This position was picked up by Academic Together, the pro-Union advocacy group, and was a consistent talking point throughout the eight months leading up to the campaign. However, one member of Academics Together was quick to point out that the real outcome was unknown during the referendum campaign, and it came down to who you believed - the SNP or the Unionists:
So that would have been, that’s been a festering kind of debate. Festering in the sense that it couldn’t be resolved, it was just bubbling away, because it could only be resolved if Scottish became independent, joined the EU, were breaking the EU rules, and could then put in a legal bid to have charging the English students continue because of the close relationship between the two states, common language, all that kind of stuff (academic, Academics Together).
This approach is consistent with other uses of higher education by the No campaign; where a credible argument could be mounted that the Yes campaign’s position was untenable, the No campaign could then use the risk of negative outcomes to drive support away from independence. Similar to the research funding issue, it was easier to point out the inherent risks in independence than to defend untested, future-looking policies. Perhaps acknowledging this challenge with the research funding and EU/UK tuition fee issue, a SNP cabinet secretary observed:
But the reality is, that we just had to say we want to do this our way and to argue it as well as we could. On each of them I think we did far better than people may have expected at the start of the debate (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
The SNP may have hoped to make free tuition fees more of an issue, and tried to profile this policy in a variety of ways. The independence white paper goes so far as to suggest that:
With independence, a welfare system aligned with our education system can address child poverty and educational under-achievement in Scotland. We believe that poverty is not, and must not be accepted as, inevitable in Scotland. This approach is true to our proud educational heritage in Scotland. To build on this legacy, the written constitution of an independent Scotland could also enshrine the right to education for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 192).
The paper stops short of promising a constitutional guarantee for free tuition, but it is plausible that enshrining “the right to education” in the context of the SNP’s existing policies would ultimately mean that free tuition fees would be provided some form of robust legal protection in an independent Scotland. Constitutionally guaranteed free tuition fees would be
171 an extraordinary policy development, and certainly unique in the western world. But in the end, these kinds of promises and grand gestures did not capture the public imagination. The only area of widespread agreement in the available public opinion survey data, at least where tuition fees are concerned, is on who should be responsible for setting them – 86 per cent agreed that the Scottish Parliament should have control over tuition levels (ScotCen, 2013b). And since this power already resides under the Devolved parliament, the tuition policy did not appear to be at risk to most voters. It ultimately proved difficult for the SNP to campaign for independence on something Scottish citizens already had, while it was quite easy for the pro-Union campaign to highlight the potential financial damage independence might create in Scotland’s valued university sector. The coverage of tuition fees suggests that, more so than research funding, debate on tuition fees came close to the kind of values-oriented discussion where the SNP thrives. But the No campaign was able to subvert this conversation by focusing on the potential risk of losing UK tuition fees and opening up a significant financial hole in the university sector. With a few exceptions, interview respondents gravitated towards the risk view, even though there may be reason to believe that Scotland could have defended its differential fee policy with Europe, based on recent decisions by the EU. The issue that has proved so potent in Scottish parliamentary elections thus appears to have fizzled in the context of the referendum campaign.
The Nationalism-Social Policy Nexus in Practice
At this point, we return to the hypothesis advanced by this dissertation, that in the course of the 2014 referendum campaign, we would expect the Yes campaign to use social policy as a means to connect their own political program to the identity and values of Scotland in an effort to position themselves as distinct from the central state and the true protectors of the political community, as predicted by Béland and Lecours’ (2008) conception of the nationalism-social policy nexus. In the case of higher education policy, we see that this was indeed largely the case in the Scottish context. The key informant interviews reveal a high level of awareness of - and agreement with - the notion of a distinct Scottish higher education tradition. Respondents also understood the SNP’s position on tuition fees to be not only a canny political strategy, but also an overt attempt to connect their policies to notions of Scottish identity and to create a stark contrast with the approaches adopted in England. The interviews also reveal widespread agreement on the fact that the tuition fee policy in
172 particular has been effective in the Scottish National Party’s electoral success in the Scottish Parliament. All of the necessary components were therefore present for the SNP and Yes campaign to deploy tuition fee policy to help their bid to convince Scotland to go it alone as an independent country. The positioning of higher education policy within the independence white paper is consistent with the nationalism-social policy nexus - emblematic of Scottish values, given unique expression through higher education policy, and under threat from the central state. In this context, only independence can protect and enhance these policies. On this point, the white paper is explicit:
As long as we rely on funding decisions at Westminster, we will bear the consequences of decisions that Scotland does not support. On universities, for example, the introduction of top-up fees in England substantially reduced government investment in higher education south of the border, and therefore reduced the size of Scotland’s allocated budget – although universities and their funding are devolved to Scotland…Progressive policies will tackle poverty, support jobs, and protect family incomes. Independence will give Scotland the powers to free children from poverty and enable them to meet their potential. Independence will also break the link to Westminster policies that Scotland neither wants nor needs… Scottish education is good but we believe it can once again be great. (Scottish Government, 2013, p. 185).
From the document review, interviews and content analysis, it is clear that throughout the referendum campaign, the Yes campaign attempted to activate the nationalism-social policy nexus through tuition fees and a variety of similar policies. Respondents differed over whether this reflected a deep commitment to the values of fairness and equity that supposedly underpin these policies, or whether it was merely a calculated attempt to win votes. In reality, it was likely a combination of the two. The case of tuition fees in the referendum campaign thus confirms the explanatory power of the nationalism-social policy context. It is a useful tool for understanding why policy might diverge within a sub-state nation, and for identifying the political factors that drive that divergence. Scottish higher education policy within the referendum campaign also demonstrates the limitations of the nationalism-social policy nexus. While it tells us why political actors committed to independence may choose certain policies, it has little to say about how those choices affect voting behaviour or political alignment behind a sub-state nationalist project. While there is certainly evidence to suggest that higher education policy, and the tuition fee policy in particular, has helped the SNP secure advantage in a series of Scottish parliamentary elections, it appears to have had far less effect during the referendum campaign. This is due to a variety of factors that have been identified in this analysis. Higher education policy
173 directly affects only a proportion of the voting public, even in high-participation sectors like the UK. As such, it was a minor issue within a campaign that raised large, existential questions about Scotland’s political, economic and political future. In Scotland, this policy area is also already devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and provisions like the tuition fee policy would likely persist regardless of the outcome of the referendum vote (as indeed it has). This had the effect of lowering the political stakes. Finally, the No campaign was at least partially successful in turning higher education back against the SNP. Through research funding, pro-Union campaigners were able to highlight the potential risks of independence to universities. For the No side, the use of the UK tuition fee issue was particularly effective in taking an area of policy strength for the SNP and shifting the terrain of the argument to potential risks and harms. These risk-based critiques were effective precisely because the SNP had featured higher education and tuition fees so prominently in its campaign narrative. The nationalism-social policy nexus tells us why sub-state nationalists might choose a particular policy pathway, but ultimately tells us very little about how different political actors may re-frame and mobilize these policies in service of their own goals. From the evidence considered here, it is reasonable to conclude higher education policy did play a role in the independence referendum. Its contribution was ultimately small, and by no means clear in its ultimate effect on voter choice. Significantly, higher education - within the context of the referendum - did not play the mobilizing role suggested by the nationalism- social policy nexus. Rather than knitting together the electorate with the sub-state nationalist through policies connected to shared political values and identity, it became a space for highlighting the potential risks of independence. Considered on their own, these risks may not have been persuasive. Taken with other policy areas where risk was high - the currency, the economy and continued membership in the EU - the net effect was to push voters towards the certainty of the status quo. Whereas higher education and tuition fee policy have been politically useful in regular elections for the Scottish Parliament, the unique dynamics and stakes of the independence debate have disrupted both the persuasiveness and mobilizing effects of this policy area.
174 9. Higher Education and Nationalism in Other Sub-State Nations
Referendums on independence are a unique opportunity to observe and evaluate the nationalism-social policy nexus in action. They are moments where the attention of the electorate is focused on the basic question at the heart of a sub-state nationalist movement: whether or not the region in question should become an independent state. The power of social policy to marshal support for independence should therefore be particularly visible during these political moments. And yet, independence referendums are relatively rare, even in jurisdictions with active nationalist elements. The Canadian province of Quebec managed two in fifteen years, which is an extraordinary tempo on a historical scale. SNP First Minister Alex Salmond pledged that the 2014 referendum was a “once in a lifetime” vote, which would seem to limit the prospects of a second referendum for several decades, at least (although given seismic political developments in the UK since 2014, this pledge seems less than ironclad, as will be discussed in the next chapter). Nationalists in Catalonia held an unauthorized independence referendum in 2017, and its leaders were subsequently jailed or exiled for their trouble. Independence referendums are the political equivalent of a supernova; very visible, dramatic, occasionally violent, yet exceptionally rare. In chapters five, six and seven of this paper, the “business as usual” dynamics of higher education and nationalism in Scotland were explored. Through multiple election cycles, higher education and tuition fee policies have been deployed by the Scottish National Party as the nationalism-social policy nexus might predict. But to have explanatory power, the nationalism-social policy nexus needs to be observed in different political contexts. Béland & Lecours (2008) make a compelling argument that this dynamic is present in other sub-state nations - Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom. The previous chapters have argued that, based on a tradition of higher education perceived as distinct, public policy around universities and colleges in Scotland has become integrated into the push for greater autonomy and has become a driver of policy divergence, particularly in the area of student finance. But is this a specific manifestation of the nationalism-social policy nexus or is it a phenomenon that exists in other substate regions? That is, if the link between higher education policy and the nationalism is an artifact of Scotland’s unique history and political context, it does not lend much support to the idea that higher education policy is widely connected to nationalism and sub-state national movements. On the other hand, if higher education policy is being used for similar political purposes in other sub-state nations with active independence projects, the applicability of higher education policy to the nexus would
175 be strengthened. With this in mind, this chapter examines other sub-state regions that contain national movements to determine if similar policy dynamics between higher education and nationalism are at work. To facilitate analysis, regions that are broadly comparable to Scotland have been selected. Quebec and the Flanders region of Belgium – exist within developed Western democracies, and all have similar economies based on manufacturing, knowledge industries, and resource extraction. They are also closely linked to the nationalism-social policy nexus in the work of Béland & Lecours (2005, 2008). To add greater potential weight to this comparison, this analysis will also look at the Catalonia region of Spain, pushing the nexus past its original three-state formulation. As a caveat for the reader, I do not intend these brief case studies to be comprehensive, nor do I possess any particular higher education policy expertise in these regions. The discussion below is limited to secondary sources in English, as I am not fluent in French, Spanish or Flemish. I hope, however, that each case study will provide a high-level appraisal of the dynamics between higher education and nationalism in each region to enrich our understanding of the nationalism-social policy nexus and what, if any, similarities exist between Scotland and these regions.
Quebec
Quebec and Scotland share many similarities and are frequently cited as parallel examples of sub-state nationalism in action. Both regions have cultural and political identities that predate their inclusion in a federal state. Scotland has an ancient and indigenous identity, while Quebec’s distinctiveness is the result of early European settlement patterns in North America. Both are now distinct regions within larger states, and both have broad control over domestic social policy, including education. Each is home to strong independence-oriented political parties, and has had referendums on independence in the last 25 years. It is often suggested that nationalists in both regions have much to learn from one another. In a 2011 interview, the Westminster Chief of Staff for the SNP indicated that he viewed the electoral success of Quebec’s nationalist Parti Québécois as “worth emulating” (Graham, 2011).
176 Figure five Location of Quebec within Canada
Image courtesy of Google Maps
However, it is important not to overstate the common features. Language has always been a defining feature of a distinct Québécois political identity and a focal point for the sovereignty movement. Scotland lacks a similar linguistic “hard marker” for its own national identity (Béland & Lecours, 2005). This characteristic may reduce the need for Quebec nationalism to express itself institutionally, as Scotland did historically with its church, legal code, and education system. Also unlike Scotland, Quebec has always had a certain amount of autonomy over its social policy within Canada. Under the terms of Confederation, the 1867 legislative settlement that created the Canadian state, the provinces were given “exclusive authority to enact legislation in policy areas such as education, health care, and social welfare” (Béland & Lecours, 2005, p. 684). Quebec’s authority over social policy is enshrined in Sections 91, 92, and 93 of the Canadian constitution, the Constitution Acts of 1867 and 1982. The United Kingdom has no written constitution, so such protections are not afforded to Scotland’s newly devolved authority over social affairs. Scotland can be seen as a region that has recently acquired political control over its internal policies, a power that it is
177 gradually applying to pursue distinct policy directions. Conversely, Quebec has always been “an autonomous province engaged in a struggle to preserve and widen existing jurisdictions” (Béland & Lecours, 2005, p. 693). Despite Quebec’s longstanding control over social policy, the province was reluctant to exercise its authority to drive policy divergence until the mid-20th century. Prior to the 1960s, Quebec society viewed activist state policies with suspicion and hostility (Heintzman, 1983). The provision of social services like education and income supports was the responsibility of the Catholic Church, and its social programs therefore reflected traditional social values. This is akin to the conservative welfare regime described by Esping-Anderson (1990), which emphasizes the preservation and reproduction of existing social structures. The dominance of the church began to break down in the 20th century. As the federal government began to play a more active role in social policy, the provincial government of Quebec was obliged to create its own social programs in order to protect its prerogatives in social affairs (Béland & Lecours, 2008). After World War II, a new economic and political elite also emerged in Quebec. The new leaders were dissatisfied with two persistent realities: Quebec remained a poor province relative to the rest of Canada, and the English-speaking minority controlled most of the economy (Béland & Lecours, 2005, p. 658). To address these irritants, and to preserve Quebec’s distinct language and culture, Quebec needed to modernize. The most expedient way to achieve this goal was through an activist provincial government. As Béland & Lecours (2005) note:
The shift of Quebec nationalism towards a more progressive – and statist – vision of social policy coincided with…the rise of a new elite seeking the political, social, and economic modernization of a province that had been dominated by traditional- conservative leaders for more than a century (p. 685).
The “Quiet Revolution” remade the social contract in Quebec, shifting the responsibility for education, health care, and welfare away from the Catholic Church and towards an interventionist state. As agents of development and modernization, Quebec’s social policies were linked to an ascendant nation-building project. Out of the Quiet Revolution came “a shared understanding of the important role of cultural and educational institutions in defending and preserving Quebec culture within a predominantly English- speaking Canada” (Sorochan, 2012). The Quiet Revolution also embedded social-democratic ideals into Quebec society, and the idea that an activist state was necessary to the social and economic development that benefitted all Quebeckers.
178 Universities were part of this modernizing mission from the beginning. As Bégin- Caouette and Jones (2015) note, The dramatic reforms to Quebec higher education that took place during the 1960s “were key components of a broader social and political transformation” (p. 415). While six universities existed in Quebec prior to the Quiet Revolution – McGill, Bishop’s, Sir George Williams (later Concordia after a merger with Loyola College), Laval, Montreal, and Sherbrooke – there is little evidence of a distinct Quebec tradition of higher education. McGill, Bishop’s, and Sir George Williams offered programming in English, and McGill in particular catered to the English-speaking elite of Montreal. The thumbprint of the Scottish tradition was perhaps evident in the development of McGill. A Scot, James McGill, founded the university through a bequest, although he had been dead a decade before the university was founded. One of the institution’s first and most influential Principals, Sir John William Dawson (also of Scottish descent), was educated at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to the mid-20th century, the French-speaking institutions were largely controlled by the Catholic Church, and subject to what Behiels (1989) describes as “clerico-nationalist” ideology (p. 320) that looked with disfavor on the introduction of the natural and social sciences into the university. Here, we see perhaps some distinctiveness in clerical dominance and curricular preference, although these unique characteristics were somewhat at odds with a modernizing society. All of the institutions – English and French – received little public support. Enrolment remained small, although English students attended university at a much higher rate than their French-speaking peers. Despite these characteristics, the nation-building potential of higher education was recognized by the leaders of the Quiet Revolution, who set about creating a modern system of higher education. As Smith and Foster (1999) note, “the modern Quebec system began abruptly… as a result of the massive reforms that together produced Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” (p. 201). The need for high quality, modern institutions to serve the needs of a developing Quebec was highlighted in the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Education in the Province of Quebec, known as the Parent Report after its principal author Alphonse-Marie Parent. Published in 1963, it was intended as a blueprint for re-making all levels of education in the province. Of particular concern to the Commission was increasing university participation rates for francophone students. The report recommended that new “institutes” be created to provide vocational training and facilitate entry into university. Parent and his commissioners also recommended that Quebec rectify “the backwardness in school attendance by the French-speaking Canadians of Quebec” by creating new francophone “centres of university study” including a new French
179 university in Montreal (Parent, 1963, p. 150). Finally, the Commission advocated improvements to student financial assistance and free access to higher education. Underlying all of these recommendations was the idea that access to university should be expanded in order to meet the needs of a modernizing Quebec. The concern was less about establishing or defining a distinct style of higher education, and more about throwing open the doors of Quebec’s universities to French-speaking students. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, most of Parent’s recommendations were implemented. The “institutes” were realized through the Collèges d’enseignement general et professionnel, or Cégeps, which are now a defining feature of Quebec’s higher education system. The Université du Québec was created, with campuses in Montreal, Quebec City, and eight other communities across the province. Quebec also invested heavily in financial aid for students, and now has a system of grants and loans that exceeds levels of support available in other Canadian provinces (Fisher et al, 2009: 552). The concern for access has also manifested itself in tuition fees that are considerably lower than elsewhere in Canada, with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2013, in the immediate aftermath of anti-tuition fee increase protests, average undergraduate tuition fees in Quebec were $2,653, as compared to the Canadian average of $5,772. Quebec’s fees were just over one-third of Ontario’s, which had the highest fees in Canada at that time (Statistics Canada, 2013). The role of higher education policy in the sovereignty referendums of 1980 and 1995 is absent from the English-language literature concerning these important political events. This suggests that either higher education policy and the higher education sector played little or no role in the respective campaigns, or that this role remains unexamined. In the former case, we can speculate that because Quebec has always had control of its educational system, autonomy in this area was not at stake in either referendum and therefore unlikely to attract much public attention. As we have seen in Scotland, “No” campaigners have a natural political advantage in their ability to contrast the well-known contours of the status quo with the inherent uncertainty of independence. In the 1995 Quebec Referendum, the Parti Québécois “purposely avoided outlining a detailed partisan Blueprint for a Sovereign Quebec” (Conley, 1997, p. 67). Instead, they chose to focus on the possible structure and additional powers of sovereignty (Rocher, 2014) and the language issue, which had the effect of “polarising Quebecers along ethno-linguistic lines” (Conley, 1997, p. 69). The No campaign, in a tactic that would be recognizable to their counterparts in Scotland, chose to highlight the economic risks associated with sovereignty. In the 1993 Canadian Election Study, “Quebec, French Language, Separation, and Constitutional Issues” were ranked as the
180 most important political issue for 14.2 per cent of sovereigntists, as opposed to 3.4 per cent of federalists, while “jobs” was most important to 32.5 per cent and 34.6 of these groups respectively (Conley, 1997, p. 69). The fact that the referendum was so close - the Yes campaign lost by 0.8 per cent - indicates that focusing on constitutional and language helped overcome “the electorate’s anxieties over a faltering provincial economy” (Conley, 1997, p. 70). Language and cultural issues were thus powerful tools for mobilizing political support in the Quebec context, a characteristic that is much weaker in Scotland. It is this plausible that institutions - such as universities - were far less important to nationalists in Quebec than in Scotland within the context of their respective independence debates, relegating higher education out of the 1995 campaign. But that does not mean that higher education - and access to it – is unimportant to Quebec identity. Indeed, the commitment to open and equitable university access contained within the Quiet Revolution has apparently transmuted from an expedient means to achieve modernization to an important social value. Up until the election of the Parti Liberal du Quebec (PLQ) in 2003, the primary focus of higher education policy in the province was expanding access, justified by the “concern with nation building but also the attachment of the Parti Québecois [Quebec’s nationalist party] to democratic socialist principles” (Fisher et al, 2009, p. 552). In 2011, the PLQ – a federalist provincial political party – attempted to raise tuition fees by $1,625, or 75 per cent, over a five-year period (Finances Québec, 2011). What happened next is well known: Quebec was engulfed in months of student protest, the largest the province - and indeed the country - had ever seen. At their peak, it is estimated that roughly 300,000 students, or 75 per cent of the overall student population, were engaged, and the protests lasted for six months (Bégin-Caouette & Jones, 2014, p. 417). Mobilization of the protesters was achieved, in part, by appealing to the idea that low tuition was a key promise of the Quiet Revolution and a policy provision consistent with Quebec’s social- democratic ideals. According to one of the leaders of the student protest, citizens of Quebec view university education “as a common good to be funded collectively through taxes to ensure accessibility for all” (Robert, 2012). The student protestors were joined by activists from organized labour and other civil society groups, rallying against a provincial government that had at that point become unpopular, not least because of their overreach in responding to the protests. While the Maple Spring ultimately became a broader protest movement, its genesis lay in the commitment of Quebec’s students to low tuition fees . The longevity of the student protests is partly due to the unique nature of the student movement in Quebec. Beginning in the 1960s, Quebec student organizations shifted from
181 recreational affinity groups to political activists. Today, there are several provincial-wide student organizations, each differing in their relative embrace of radical politics. All of these organizations are, however, steeped in the idea that collective action can yield results:
In 1968, they went on strike for tuition fees; in 1974 for more funding and loans; in 1978 for accessible loans and scholarships; in 1986 for a tuition freeze; in 1988 for aid for part-time students; in 1990 and 1994 to fight against tuition increases; in 2005 to oppose the conversion of student funding grants into loans; and in 2007 and 2012 against tuition increases (Bégin-Caouette & Jones, 2014, p. 416).
Thus, students in Quebec view mass movements and strikes as both a legitimate and successful strategy, more so than their counterparts in other provinces. The motivation for the protests were tied up in conceptions of nation and political strategy, the tactics employed were also a manifestation of the unique characteristics of Quebec’s politics and higher education system. Although the PLQ attempted to negotiate with the students, they were unable to end the protests. They further mismanaged the situation by introducing Bill 78, legislation that imposed huge fines on those who participated in protests. The Bill, viewed by observers in Quebec and across Canada as a draconian attempt to silence dissent, catalyzed public opposition to the government. The PLQ, already weakened by a series of scandals, lost the subsequent election to the Parti Québecois (PQ), who secured a minority government. The PQ, Quebec’s most avowedly nationalist party, is committed to securing sovereignty for the province. Like the SNP, it is social democratic in orientation. The PQ’s essential argument is that, “Quebec has a different political culture from the rest of Canada, that it is more collectivist, egalitarian, compassionate, and caring for the poorest and most vulnerable elements of society” (Béland & Lecours, 2005, p. 686). This statement of values is very similar to the SNP’s statement at the beginning of their independence white paper:
Our national story has been shaped down the generations by values of compassion, equality, an unrivalled commitment to the empowerment of education, and a passion and curiosity for invention that has helped to shape the world around us” (Scottish Government, 2013, p. viii)
The social-democratic on display in these statements supports the predictive power of the nationalism-social policy nexus. Social policy is only useful to sub-state nationalists if it is expansive and active in multiple areas connected to daily life. Social-democratic values embrace the notion of an activist state with broad policy interventions as a means to build equality and social citizenship. Such policy also supports nation-building efforts, so it is not
182 surprising that the nationalists committed to outright independence in both Scotland and Quebec are social democrats. The PQ cancelled the planned tuition increase following its 2012 election win. This outcome was predictable given the party’s ideological orientation and the fact that it rode the Maple Spring to victory. The PLQ’s tuition fee policy was a gift to the PQ, in the sense that it allowed them to activate the nationalism-social policy nexus to produce an electoral advantage. Quebec identity contains ideas about social citizenship that includes access to higher education, and supports the existence of an activist state to provide funding for the various social programs seen as distinct from the rest of Canada. It is therefore a social policy issue that allows the PQ to position itself as the defender of Quebec’s unique values, while simultaneously connecting their own policies to key aspects of the province’s political identity. While this issue was absent in 1995 - the referendum campaign preceded the rapid rise in Canadian tuition fees that took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and thus lacked a clear differentiating character - it is interesting that it came to the fore in this particular chapter in Quebec’s political history. It is worth noting that the student protests ultimately failed to achieve one of its key objectives - a tuition fee freeze. While the PQ cancelled the PLQ’s planned increases and briefly froze fees, they eventually landed on a policy where fees were indexed to inflation. Fees have continued to steadily rise over the past eight years, and the gap between Quebec and the rest of Canada has narrowed. Average undergraduate tuition in a social science program costs $3,132, compared to the national average of $5,544 - a still-significant 77 per cent difference. But it is worth noting that this gap stood at 117 per cent in 2013. Ontario - which reduced tuition fees in 2019-20 - no longer has the highest fees in the country, and the difference between Quebec and Ontario’s fees have shrunk from a factor of three to a factor of two. While the impact of the inflation-indexed tuition fees brought in by the PQ have had an impact on the ratios between Quebec and its peers within Canada, these relatively modest increases were far less than had been anticipated by the university sector. Cancelling the tuition fee increase deprived Quebec’s universities of an estimated $420 million in new revenue. The PLQ had also promised to match the new tuition fee revenue with a $430 million increase in public operating grants. The PQ declined to make this new investment, and further cut university operating funds by $124 million (Seidman, 2012). This act created a great deal of consternation in Quebec’s universities, and the sector is continuing to struggle with this loss in revenue. Like all Canadian provinces, public funding for Quebec’s universities had already been in decline (Fisher et al, 2009), and the latest cuts made a bad
183 funding situation much worse. Nevertheless, despite these financial straits, Quebec seems committed to a low-tuition fee regime. It has also been argued that “the protests have led to a weakening of the political influence of the universities, and left the sector more fragile in the face of possible government intervention and reform” (Bégin-Caouette & Jones, 2014, p. 422). Like Scotland, the nationalism-social policy nexus can be used to explain policy divergence in higher education, but the effect of this divergence on the institutions in both regions is significantly different. While the Scottish Government has protected the funding of its universities and the institutions remain politically powerful, Quebec institutions appear to have suffered in the wake of the PQ’s tuition fee policy. One respondent pointed out that tuition fees in both Scotland and Quebec have a similar symbolic quality, primarily as differentiators between the nation/province and the larger state:
There’s a little bit here of this Quebec Syndrome, where you put up tuition fees by a couple of hundred dollars or whatever it was, and students take to the streets. But not because of the amount, because of the principle. This is just the slippery slope, this will then go towards a full-cost tuition regime unless we rule it out completely. And also, I think Quebec is tied up with this story of who we are. “We don’t do that kind of thing, that’s what they do in the rest of Canada. We look to France, we look to other places.” Here, there’s this notion of, again, it’s part of this national story. We don’t compare ourselves with England. We compare ourselves with Denmark or Norway. This is part of what defines us, this notion of free education (academic, ancient university).
The similarities in tuition fee policy do not stop there. Quebec also applies its tuition fee policies in a preferential way. Students from outside of the province pay much higher fees at Quebec universities. In 2020-21, a Quebec-domiciled undergraduate student at McGill University paid $2,622 (without ancillary fees), while out-of-province students paid $8,816 – nearly four times as much (McGill, 2020). This differential rate has existed for decades, and under both nationalist and federalist governments, so it is difficult to conclude that this policy is “nationalist”. As the Scottish case indicates, the policy of differential fees between Scottish and rUK students has largely practical and financial motivations. Still, this reality can be – and often is, as we have seen in Scotland – the source of regional tension as preferential treatment (often funded by general tax revenues paid by all citizens of the state) breeds resentment (Béland & Lecours, 2008). Also similar to Scotland, the extent of public support for low tuition fees in Quebec is somewhat unclear. The protests of 2012 were unprecedented both in size and composition,
184 drawing support from across Quebec society. However, this may have been more about the PLQ’s overreach in Bill 78 than actual commitment to low fees. Polling conducted in 2012 indicated that while 44 per cent of Quebec residents felt tuition fees were “about right”, 31 per cent felt they were too low (Abacus, 2012). This data suggests lukewarm support for the continued heavy subsidization of tuition fees. While low or free tuition may be connected to ideas about Scottish and Quebec identity, it is far from certain that these policies - outside of the unique context of the Maple Spring -actually build durable electoral support for the PQ, or referendum support for the SNP. One clear area of difference between Scotland and Quebec is university participation rates. While Scotland has always led the UK in university attendance, young people in Quebec have had university participation rates historically lower than the rest of Canada (Shaienks et al., 2008). Quebec’s unique cégeps mean that its college participation rate is the highest in Canada, but this has not translated into higher participation rates at the degree level. Tuition fees alone, it seems, are an insufficient condition for increased university participation. This echoes the conclusions of a wide variety of research (for a summary, see EPI, 2008) that suggests participation in higher education is complex, involving a variety of familial, financial, and structural issues. Scotland and Quebec’s efforts to increase university access are focused on the tuition fee issue, and as discussed in earlier chapters, this may limit efforts to broaden participation in higher education among groups who are traditionally under-represented in higher education. Scotland’s higher participation rates have much to do with cultural factors, and with the structure of its secondary school system (Court, 2004; Ianelli, 2007). Similarly, Quebec’s lower participation rates may have cultural and socio- economic explanations. While the Parent Commission lamented the lack of participation of Francophones in higher education, this was to some extent addressed structurally by the creation of new Francophone institutions during the 1960s and 70s. The social contract forged in the Quiet Revolution has come to revolve around fees, not necessarily access and participation. At any rate, tuition fees are only one factor in the access puzzle, but they are highly salient in the minds of students and parents. The focus on tuition fees in Scotland and Quebec may be superficial in terms of promoting access, but fees are also highly visible and politically controversial. This makes them useful to political parties who are primarily concerned with building support for independence. Over the past decade, the PQ has not enjoyed the political success of the SNP. After securing a minority administration following the Maple Spring, the PQ fell out of power in 2014 as the PLQ surged to its own minority government. It was the worst electoral showing
185 by the PQ since 1970, an outcome it managed to top in 2018, when it was reduced to 10 seats in the National Assembly. Clearly, whatever political support they had garnered from the Maple Spring was short-lived. Despite going into the election with a significant lead in the polls, the PQ made a series of missteps that cost them the election. Interestingly, it was the PQ’s sudden focus on another independence referendum that appears to have turned voters away. This indicates that public support for outright sovereignty may be at a low ebb. Not that the federalists fared any better - four years later, the PLQ was similarly swept from power as the centre-right and nationalist - but not outright separatist - Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) leapt from third place to a large majority government in 2018. Higher education policy was not a central issue in the 2014 and 2018 campaigns. This is somewhat surprising, given that tuition fees were the issue in the lead up to the previous election, coming on the heels of the Maple Spring protest. Indeed, the relationship between higher education policy and independence movements is complex, and will vary according to the specific political context. The CAQ’s ascendancy troubles the nationalism-social policy’s prediction that sub-state nationalists will favour a social-democratic vision of the state. While the CAQ certainly favours greater autonomy for Quebec, it takes a more market-oriented and centrist approach to social policy, more in line with provincial governments in other provinces. The CAQ government has so far left tuition fee policy alone, save for allowing universities to set their own international tuition fees and allowing them to keep all of this revenue. In 2012, CAQ leader - and now Premier - François Legault told striking students to “go back to class and pay their tuition fees in full,” so it appears his government may have little sympathy with the view that low-cost higher education is key promise of the Quiet Revolution and a key social value for Quebeckers (Bagnall, 2012). The SNP is now six years and one parliamentary election past its referendum defeat. In Quebec, the PQ held on to power for five years following the 1980 referendum loss, and nearly eight years past 1995. Losing an independence referendum does not seem to immediately compromise a nationalist party’s electoral prospects, and can in fact lead to an increase in popularity (the SNP’s post-referendum surge will be explored in the next chapter). These boosts, however, can be fleeting. After winning one provincial election in 1998, the PQ lost power in 2003 and has struggled to regain electoral advantage. The Maple Spring allowed them to form government in 2012, but this set the stage for electoral collapse in 2014, and a significant worsening in 2018. Support for sovereignty also appears to be at a nadir in Quebec - a 2016 poll found that 82 per cent of respondents - and, tellingly, 73 per cent of Francophones - believed Quebec should stay in Canada (CBC News, 2016). The
186 prospects for the nationalist project in Quebec currently appear quite dim. The nationalism-social policy nexus has run in two different directions in Scotland and Quebec, yet has ended up in similar places. Quebec has always had the power to set policy for its universities, but has exercised this authority relatively late in its history. By using educational policy for nation-building purposes, it managed to create a social value that has been absorbed into Quebec identity: that universities should be accessible to all, regardless of the ability to pay. There is little evidence, however, that this value has been motivating within the context of Quebec’s two referenda, although it has played a role in at least one provincial election in the past decade. Conversely, Scotland has only recently acquired control over its universities, and is using this power to re-capture a supposedly lost Scottish value: that universities should be accessible to all, regardless of the ability to pay. In both cases, the clearest manifestation of these values in public policy is divergent tuition fee policies. In both regions, nationalist parties that share a similar social democratic orientation are driving, or have driven, this divergence. While the historical and political contexts are very different, there is compelling evidence to conclude that a similar link exists between higher education policy and nationalism in Quebec and Scotland, and that this link is producing broadly similar results as both regions grapple with the question of independence. Interestingly, in Scotland, the divergence is being driven from above, with the Scottish Government introducing a new policy wrapped in ideas of political values and identity. In Quebec, the dynamic runs in the opposite direction: tuition fee policy has long been divergent in Quebec relative to the rest of Canada. Successive governments, both federalist and nationalist, have attempted to bring provincial policy more in line with their peers in Confederation. Resistance to this re-alignment was driven from below, by students and citizens steeped in the idea that low-cost higher education was a right granted by their citizenship, and one that must be protected as a core political value.
Catalonia
Spain is a complex federal state, with persistent tensions between a strong national government and nationalist regions like Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia. The early 20th century saw these tensions - overlaid by cultural and ideological factors - flare into a bloody and violent civil war. Catalonia was the at the epicentre of this conflict, and the international and political intrigues that characterized it, as documented in, for example, George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (1938). In the wake of the Spanish Civil War,
187 military dictator Francisco Franco ruled the country from 1939 to 1975, suppressing regional identities and concentrating power at the national level. Following Spain’s transition to democracy, the 1978 Constitution allowed for the creation of “Autonomous Communities,” regional governments with authority over a variety of policy areas, including education. The constitution reflected a unique form of political settlement, intended to resolve the conflict between regional and national political parties that had simmered in Spain since the end of the 19th century (Losada & Máiz, 2005). Instead of a federal system with consistent and constitutionally derived powers vested in the regions, as in Canada, the constitution allowed “variable rates of access to political autonomy for the various regions and nationalities, along with diversity in their respective competences” (Ibid., p. 437). While this open-ended definition of autonomy was effective in bringing Spain’s fractious political elites into alignment with the new constitution, it did not actually enshrine in legislation the powers of the autonomous communities. In this sense, Spain is similar to the United Kingdom in that the various regions have differential powers. The Scottish Parliament has more power than the Welsh assembly, just as Catalonia is among the more independent of the autonomous communities. Where the two nations differ is that in Spain, this system is constitutionally derived, while in the UK it is a function of different negotiated and dynamic settlements between Westminster and the devolved parliaments. However, the codification of the autonomous communities in the Spanish constitution does not prevent arguments over who has jurisdiction for particular policy areas. Laws passed in the autonomous communities, while in theory fully applicable within the boundaries of that community, cannot modify or repeal laws passed by the central state. This “latent” legislative power of Spain over the autonomous communities means that devolution is neither complete nor permanent (Losada & Máiz, 2005). The complexity of this arrangement is illustrated in the following passage:
Even though the range of the competences of the autonomous communities in Spain is considerable, the latent legislative competence of the state remains full and universal. Even in areas where the Constitution gives exclusive competence to the autonomous communities, state law remains valid, though supplementary to regional law, so that the ratification of a regional law only acts to limit the actual territorial application of state law. That is, instead of establishing criteria of validity that favour either the state or the regional law depending on who is entitled to legislate in a certain matter, criteria that merely establish the applicability of the law – regional or central – are used. Either state or regional law is applied, depending on the area of competence to be regulated, but both are constitutionally valid (Losada & Máiz, 2005, pp. 447-448).
In practice, this means that policies enacted by the Catalonian legislature are less
188 protected than comparable policies in Scotland. In the area of education, decentralization and devolution advanced steadily between 1985 and 2000 under successive socialist governments, until the right-of-centre Popular Party of José Maria Aznar sought to re- centralize educational policy, provoking significant conflict with the autonomous communities. In contrast, Scotland has the benefit of a clear delineation of powers in its enabling legislation, which were subsequently expanded and declared permanent in the 2016 Scotland Act. Catalonia was one of the first regions to be named an autonomous community, and, as such, devolution is nominally older in Catalonia than it is in Scotland, which means, as Busetti and Dente (2015) suggest, that Catalonia possesses a more experienced bureaucracy. It also has greater fiscal powers than Scotland, including “more wide-ranging freedom over the allocation of its budget” (Ibid., p. 42). The Catalonian parliament also has devolved authority over education, but as described above, this is not absolute and is subject to renegotiation. This somewhat shifting power over educational policy extends to universities and the vocational training sector. The Ley de Reforma Universitaria (LRU), or University Reform Act, passed in 1983, and the Law of Promotion and General Co-ordination of Scientific and Technical Research in 1986 , transferred control of the universities to the autonomous regions (Mora, 2007). Since the LRU, Catalonia has had broad powers to fund and set policy for its universities. However, it has not pursued policy divergence to the same scale as Quebec and Scotland. I suggest that this is due to the lack of a distinctive Catalonian tradition in higher education, the complex and multi-governmental control of universities, the lack of a salient policy area for meaningful divergence and the historically ideologically diverse nature of nationalism in Catalonia.
189 Figure six Location of Catalonia within Spain
Image courtesy of Google Maps
Spain has a long history of university education. The University of Salamanca, founded in 1218, is the third oldest European university. The University of Lleida, the first Catalonian university, was founded in 1300. However, there is little evidence of a distinctive Spanish or Catalonian tradition of higher education either in medieval or modern contexts. In 1717, following the War of Spanish Succession, the medieval Catalan universities were shut down as punishment for the failure of the Catalonian counties of Aragon to support the French House of Bourbon. New universities, based on French institutions, were soon established. In the 19th century, Spain organized its universities according to the Napoleonic model imported from Revolutionary France, where universities were “totally regulated by laws and norms issued by the state at the national level” (Mora, 2007, p. 994). In this sense, they tended to resemble Clark’s (1986) “continental mode” of university organization, with strong authority at the level of individual faculty, but overall authority resting with the central state (p. 125). As a result, these institutions initially allowed for little expression of regional character, “where the reality of Catalonia met with difficulties expressing itself, and its own
190 language was totally absent” (Catalan Universities Law, as quoted in ACUP, 2008, p. 37). Following the establishment of the 2nd Spanish Republic in 1931, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, or Autonomous University of Barcelona was established in 1933, and subsequently renamed the University of Catalonia in 1937 in the midst of the civil war. This institution is described as a “glimmer of light” and that it “contributed one of the few glimpses of European modernity of the era” (ACUP, 2008, p. 38). It did not last long. Following the victory of Franco’s nationalists in 1939, the institution was dissolved. The Franco dictatorship was a period of neglect and decline for the Spanish universities. The transition to democracy and the passage of the Ley de Reforma Universitaria ushered in a period of modernization and expansion. The LRU, and the Law of Promotion and General Co-ordination of Scientific and Technical Research (passed in 1983 and 1986, respectively, “formed the basis for emancipating higher education from the control of the state,” allowing universities greater autonomy and re-casting academic staff as employees of individual institutions, not the government (Mora, 2007, p. 995). However, this move largely reflected trends in the rest of Europe (Neave & Van Vught, 1991), not the emergence of a distinctly Spanish or Catalan model. The modern Catalonian university sector is composed of 20 institutions, 12 public and eight private. The fact that 60 per cent of Catalan institutions are public is an anomaly in Spain, where only 24 of its 76 universities are funded by the state. This reality also means that half of Spain’s public institutions are located within Catalonia, which accounts for only 16 per cent of the country’s population. The Catalan public institutions are broadly similar to comprehensive or research-intensive universities elsewhere in Europe, while the private institutions are more specialized, focusing on business, engineering and, in one case, religious instruction (Abat Oliba CEU University). There is also the private Open University of Catalonia (OUC), focused on remote and online instruction. Open universities elsewhere in the world, including the Open University in the UK, are typically public. The existence of a private institution that prioritizes open admissions and remote instruction is perhaps then a Catalonian innovation, albeit one that does not draw on any previous tradition of higher education (the OUC was founded in 1994). Aside from language of instruction and the greater prevalence of public provision, then, there is nothing particularly Catalan about the universities in Catalonia, historically or otherwise. This is a point of distinction between Catalonia and Scotland, and something that, per the nationalism-social policy nexus, might prevent the Catalan university policy from emphasizing identity and values. If there is no pre- existing connection between Catalan identity and the university sector, then it will be more
191 difficult for a nationalist government to mobilize political support around policy in this area. However, there is some evidence that the Autonomous Communities are using their power over education policy to align their educational systems more closely to regional needs and to the distinct cultural contexts in which they operate. Losada and Máiz (2005), in examining educational policy in Spain since 1978, highlight the nation-building effects of devolution in the area of education, not just in Catalonia but also in the Basque Country and in Galicia. As they note, “The decentralization and devolution of education policies to the regions played a key role in the process of building a ‘Galician nation’, a ‘Basque nation’ and a ‘Catalan nation’” (p. 439). Whereas in Scotland the sense of a national and distinct education system predated the devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament, Losada & Máiz (2005) suggest that it was devolution itself that helped create a sense of national distinctiveness in Catalonia and other Spanish autonomous communities:
The reinforcement of identities through educational policies was of particular relevance in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia. For the first time, these historical nationalities had a chance to provide a new generation of students with an education in their own language, history, geography and particular socioeconomic features” (p. 438).
This in turn helped create the idea that these autonomous communities were nations in their own right:
[Devolution] has contributed to the political, institutional and identity production of the nation through a greater use and institutionalization of distinctive languages, educational and cultural changes that introduce nationalist discursive elements, institutionalization of nationalist values and collective identity features in history, language, culture and folklore” (p. 440).
These observations apply to all levels of education in Catalonia, including universities. The institutions themselves, particularly the publics, also seem to be embracing a regional and cultural role. In 2008, the Associació Catalana d’Universitats Públiques (ACUP), the organization that represents all 12 of the public universities in Catalonia, published the White Paper on the University of Catalonia, which was notable in several respects. First, there is no University of Catalonia per se - the paper positions the 12 public institutions as within a unitary system under a unified banner, while maintaining their individual autonomy. Among the goals articulated for this collaborative framework is that universities “must be committed to society, democratic values and the Catalan culture” (ACUP, 2008, p. 13). At the same time, the universities should maintain a European and global focus. These goals would be
192 recognizable to an observer of the modern Scottish universities - the commitment to Scottish society and the education of citizens being a longstanding feature of the sector, and the focus on Europe reflecting the political preferences of the Scottish people. The ACUP white paper traces the history of the sector from 1986, when the universities were transferred to the Generalitat de Catalunya, making the case that the regionalization was generally positive for the institutions. The paper notes, for example, that of the top 10 Spanish universities receiving funding through the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, half are Catalan. Expanded access for a wider demographics of students and the modernization of facilities are also cited as successes of devolution. Thanks to 30 years of mostly independent policymaking in Catalonia, the white paper claims that, “it would therefore seem clear that both due to quality of education, research and, more incipiently, innovation, the Catalan public University has advanced greatly since the LRU was enacted in 1983, in a great leap that has placed it, in many ways, at the top of the Spanish university system” (p. 40). In the white paper, we see how the universities are increasingly setting the region, not the Spanish state, as their lodestar for navigating their social, cultural and economic roles. This turn does not mean that these institutions believe themselves to be distinct from other Spanish institutions. Rather, they are increasingly focused on serving Catalonia over Spain - the difference is in focus, not in form. One interview respondent, a Scottish pro-Independence campaigner, observed that Catalonia universities were more likely to take an interest in regional identity, in contrast to Scottish universities that were increasingly integrated into the broader UK context:
So the first thing to say is that there are some occasions, and I’m not an expert in our country’s university sector, but there are occasions where the university sector absorbs quite a substantial part of the identity of the region and therefore is seen as if not a hotbed of radical dissent or constitutional dissent, it’s at least a place where you find a large amount of the thinking about nation, nation state, nationhood and identity taking place. Catalonia is quite a good example; universities in Catalonia are prone to taking a substantial interest in the nature of Catalonian identity and so on. That’s not the case broadly in Scotland. Scotland – that is not how the higher education sector here works (pro-independence campaigner).
This observation is interesting, as we would expect that Scottish universities would be home to many historians and sociologists focused on Scotland. The respondent, as someone situated outside of the university sector, is likely expressing their perception that Scotland’s universities as a whole are less focused on Scottish concerns than Catalonia. However, it is worth noting that, just as in primary or secondary education, Catalonia’s
193 control of its universities is not complete. The LRU created a situation where:
[R]responsibility for university education is particularly confusing, as it guaranteed their autonomy, placed them under the autonomous communities, and then gave the central government authority to harmonize their structures and the conditions of staff and qualifications (Greer, 2007, p. 168)
The power to fund and regulate university operations lies with the autonomous communities, while some control over the sector remains reserved to the central state, including the ability to set conditions and standards, an example of Losada and Máiz’s (2005) “latent” legislative power . The Catalan parliament does not have the same level of control over its institutions as Scotland and Quebec. Both of these regions receive funding from the central state, primarily in research and infrastructure funding. But the ability to set policy that influences the finance and operation of the institutions lies exclusively with their legislatures. Arguably, Catalonia’s greater financial autonomy means its funding powers in higher education are not constrained, as is public expenditure in Scotland through the Barnett Formula. Nevertheless, the ability of Catalonia to pursue its own prerogatives in higher education remains restricted through the reservation of some powers to the central Spanish state. Under the socialist central governments of the 1990s and early 2000s, the control of the Autonomous Communities over their universities was allowed to expand. Like other areas of the education system, this authority was challenged by the Aznar government, with declining standards and EU harmonization as justifications for imposing new regulations on institutions. As Losada & Máiz (2005) observe:
The need to reform the university system for the new European context, and to address the excessive number of school drop-outs, in conjunction with the deteriorating standards of the baccalaureate and other problems in the educational system, all turned into motives for the central government to homogenize and standardize the competences and educational models of the autonomous communities so as to improve their quality” (p. 450).
Tensions over jurisdiction between the central and regional governments is often a potent site for nationalist mobilization, and that has indeed been the case in Catalonia. Higher education has not featured prominently in these arguments to date, but this may change if the Spanish state decides to be more directive in the higher education space. But again, the lack of a recognizably distinct Catalonian higher education sector tends to undermine any argument that the Spanish state is undermining the character of the Catalan universities. In
194 Scotland, these arguments carry much more weight, given the broadly shared sense of a distinct Scottish higher education tradition. Catalonia also lacks a salient higher education issue around which to pursue policy divergence. Tuition fees in Scotland and Quebec are highly visible and controversial, and are also connected to social values. Spain, in contrast to the UK and Canada, already features relatively low fees, at least at the public institutions. The Spanish system has also historically featured an “open door” admissions policy, which has led to a fairly balanced distribution of socio-economic groups within Spanish universities (Mora & Villarreal, 1996). There is thus nothing particularly Catalonian about low fees or open access, while both of these concepts have become strongly linked to Scottish and Quebec identity. Of course, fees and access are just two areas of higher education where divergence can occur. Divergence can also be pursued in institutional models, institutional mix, or in curriculum. However, according to the available evidence, there is no indication that Catalonia is using its authority over university education to pursue policy divergence in these areas. Catalonian nationalism is linked to language, as Catalan is distinct from (although similar to) Spanish. However, Catalonian universities take an inclusive approach to language. At the University of Lleida, for example, Spanish, Catalan, and English are all considered official working languages. The university’s website claims that Catalan is “the most commonly used language,” but students “have the right to express themselves during the lessons, carry out their practices, do their essays and/or do the exams in one of the three official languages as long as they let it know to the professor at the beginning of the first lessons” (Universitat de Lleida, 2014). This arrangement, to varying degrees, can be found at most Catalan universities. While there may be local or institutional variations placed on the Catalan language, there is little evidence in the literature that the Catalan language is an existing or emerging point of distinctiveness within the broader Spanish higher education sector. The ACUP white paper acknowledges that the public universities have a role to play in promoting Catalan, but also recognizes the fact that it is a “weaker language” and requires special consideration to ensure it is not “harmed or marginalized” (ACUP, 2008, p. 55). An increasing recognition of the need to protect the Catalan language, within a larger commitment to Catalan culture, may begin to create some distinctiveness within the university sector. At present, however, that distinctiveness does not appear to be politically salient or particularly connected to Catalonian nationalism. Another key element of the nationalism social-policy nexus is absent in Catalonia - consistent left-of-centre governance where an ideological preference for activist state policies
195 creates more room for divergence in social policy. Whereas independence-oriented and social democratic political parties have held power in Scotland and Quebec, Catalonian nationalism has, until recently, been somewhat more moderate both in its political ideology and its push for greater autonomy. For most of the post-Franco period, Catalan politics has been dominated by the Convergència i Unió (CiU), or Convergence and Union coalition, a longstanding partnership between the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and the Democratic Union of Catalonia. The CiU won six straight governments between 1980 and 1999. The coalition was centre-right in ideology, and while nationalist in outlook, it pursued a “relatively harmonious” relationship with Spain (Dowling, 2009, p. 185). The electoral monopoly of the CiU was overturned in 2003, and a new coalition government, led by the centre-left Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) came to power. The ERC is both leftist and committed to independence, but its purview for action was limited by Catalonia’s coalition politics. The party shared government with the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (Socialists’ Party of Catalonia) and the Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (Initiative for Catalonian Greens). While both of these parties are left-wing in orientation, they do not share the ERC’s commitment to outright independence. This tension became moot in 2010 when the CiU returned to power, albeit in a minority situation. Up until this point, the structure of Catalonia’s politics militated against the dynamics of the nationalism-social policy nexus. While the ERC may have desired to use social policy as a means to build support for independence, coalition realities and electoral defeat made this very difficult. In the 2015 election, a new political coalition came to power, centred around the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and its leader Carles Puidgemont. Between 2010 and 2015, the CDC shifted away from its soft-nationalist stance and took an avowedly separatist turn. The new emphasis on outright independence caused the partnership between the CDC and the Democratic Union of Catalonia to break down, and a variety of new and ultimately unstable political coalitions to form. Eventually, the CDC formed a stable coalition with the ERC and the Junts pel Sí, another independence-focused party. As all partners in this coalition favoured independence, the new government began to move Catalonia towards a referendum. Whereas the Scottish and UK governments were able to agree on the terms of an independence referendum, no such agreement was made between Catalonia and Spain. The parliament of Catalonia unilaterally authorized a referendum vote September 6, 2017. The Constitutional Court of Spain ruled the referendum in breach of the Spanish Constitution, and therefore illegal, on September 7th. The High Court of Justice of Catalonia also issued orders to stop the referendum. The vote proceeded on October 1st, with
196 the autonomous Catalan police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra taking no action to prevent it. Spain’s National Police Corps and Guardia Civil did intervene, raiding several polling stations and sparking violence with pro-independence supporters (BBC, 2017). When the dust had settled, Catalans had voted 92.1 per cent in favour of independence, although turnout was low at 43 per cent (Soares, 2017). The nationalist government blamed police violence for the low turnout, suggesting that 770,000 votes were prevented or lost due to polling stations raids and accompanying violence. Nevertheless, the Parliament of Catalonia declared independence on October 27, 2017. The Spanish government immediately invoked Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, dissolving the Parliament of Catalonia, dismissing Puidgemont from his post, and imposing central authority over some of Catalonia’s autonomous powers. Spain’s Constitutional Court subsequently annulled the independence Declaration (Hunter, 2017). Puidgemont and several other separatist leaders were charged with rebellion, sedition and, less exotically, misuse of public funds. They fled to Belgium, and as of this writing, Puidgemont remains in self-exile. This state of affairs have not curbed his political ambitions - he contested in absentia a seat in the 2017 regional election, and was returned to the Catalan Parliament. In 2019, he was elected to the European Parliament and, after some judicial wrangling, was allowed to take up his seat. Following the referendum and Spanish crackdown, the CDC was reformed as the Catalan European Democratic Party, or PDECAT. Separatists continue to hold a slim majority in the Parliament of Catalonia. While all of this was certainly dramatic - and has yet to be fully resolved - it tells us very little about either higher education policy or the nationalism social-policy nexus. Amid the fireworks of a wildcat referendum, police raids and exiled politicians, there was little space for deep discussion of policy. There were no white papers or deep policy analysis, as was the case in the Scottish Referendum. From the available English-language materials on the referendum, there was little evidence of the Catalan separatists using social policy to promote their political project. In politics, context is definitive, and it seems clear that the nationalism-social policy nexus does not automatically exist in every sub-state region with an active independence movement. This is not to say that Catalonia, under normal political conditions, has not used its devolved authority to further its own national project. As Losada and Máiz (2005) observe, Catalonia’s use of devolved authority has “helped to articulate a solid collective identity and improve the organization of collective interests” (p. 440). However, it does not appear that higher education policy plays a particularly important role in this articulation. While not an area for nationalist policy activism, Catalonia’s universities function as important network
197 nodes for Catalonia’s intellectual and political elite, furnishing the nationalists with political leaders and an active brain trust (Greer, 2007). The Catalonian government has also been active in creating new universities, alongside many of the other autonomous communities. Notably, the Generalitat re-founded the University of Lleida in 1994, an explicit call to Catalonia’s pre-Spanish university history, one that existed prior to the strong centralizing function of the Napoleonic university model. As Greer (2007) notes, Catalonia was notable for the sheer amount of resources it invested in new institutions, and in their “avowed missions as nation-building exercises” (p. 169). So far, the creation of new institutions is the clearest connection between Catalan nationalism and higher education policy. Catalonia is not unique among autonomous communities in this push to expand its university system, but it is the furthest along. Higher education divergence in Spain is more about the relative intensity of system expansion, and less about institutional type or access policies. Based on this brief analysis, it does not appear that there is a strong link between higher education policy in Catalonia and the region’s turbulent nationalist politics. This is due to the absence of several factors that are present in Scotland and, to a lesser degree, in Quebec: a distinct historical tradition of higher education that is connected to political identity; a salient issue within the higher education space, like tuition fees, where arguments about values and distinctiveness can be organized; and a legislature with complete control over education policy. The case of Catalonia does not invalidate the nationalism-social policy nexus, but rather demonstrates what factors must be present for higher education policy to follow the pattern predicted by the nexus. Nation-building in Spain has followed a different pattern than the United Kingdom or Canada, and its nationalist politics look very different as a result.
Flanders
Charles de Gaulle once remarked that Belgium is a country invented by the English to annoy the French. Uncharitable, perhaps, but a reflection of the complex and historically contingent nature of the Belgian state. Belgium’s political structure is defined by the relationship between three distinct linguistic and cultural groups: the Dutch-speaking Flemish who occupy the northern Flanders region; the French-speaking residents of Wallonia, in the south; and a German-speaking minority who co-habit the southern part of the country. Belgium was originally established as a highly centralized state, but competition for resources and authority between the three groups has conspired to create a federal
198 arrangement among the three “Communities.” The Flemish, French, and German Communities have independent control “over culture, education, media, and some social services” (De Rynck, 2005, p. 485). Each ethnic community maintains distinct public school systems, and has the authority to organize and certify higher education institutions. The higher education systems of Flanders and Wallonia were formally separated by constitutional reforms completed in 1988 (De Wit & Verhoeven, 2004). While the Flemish and French communities maintain distinct, multi-institution higher education systems for their citizens, German-speaking Belgians typically enroll in French institutions, or seek postsecondary opportunities in Germany. Flanders is home to five universities and a number of university colleges (hogescholen), while the French community in Wallonia maintains six universities and sub-divides its university colleges into Hautes écoles (colleges) and Écoles supérieures des Arts (arts colleges). This differing institutional mix is the clearest form of divergence between the two regions, but the differences between these institutional types – and indeed, between Walloon and Flemish universities – has not been extensively explored in the English-language literature. Several authors (see, for example, De Wit & Verhoeven, 2004; Verhoeven, 2008; and De Wit, Verhoeven & Broucker, 2019) have explored how Flanders has used its authority over its higher education sector to institute a series of legislative reforms (in 1991 and 1994) that introduced a new system of quality assurance and weakened the binary distinction between universities and colleges. These reforms were aimed at increasing the competitiveness and effectiveness of the sector, and did not have a strong nationalist or identity-based character. Overall, the gaps in analysis of the Belgian system have been identified by several scholars working within the country, and hopefully they will be addressed in more detail in future research (Broucker et al., 2019).
199 Figure Seven Location of Flanders within Belgium
Image courtesy of Google Maps
As described by Béland & Lecours (2008), the connection between social policy and nationalism in Belgium is fairly recent, arising as a significant political force in the 1980s. The nationalist tendencies of the Flemish population is, however, much older - in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a “Flemish Movement” arose, which “eventually grew to articulate ideas of Flemish nationhood” (Ibid., p. 147). This nationalism is rooted more firmly in culture and language than it is in Scotland, which in turn means it is less connected to social policy issues (Ibid., p. 146). This focus on language has, from time to time, implicated higher education institutions, “which the post‐First World War campaign designed to elevate Dutch as the main language at the University of Ghent is a perfect illustration” (p. 149). Another example is the Catholic University of Leuven/Louvain. The institution originally offered instruction only in French, but Dutch lectures were added in 1930. The institution became the focus of the Flemish Movement in the late 1960s, with demands for it to become a unilingual Flemish institution. The subsequent conflict became a political crisis in Belgium, with violent protests occurring throughout 1967, and caused the coalition government of Paul Vanden Boeyants to collapse. The ultimate solution to the conflict came when the Flemish and French
200 sections of the institutions split, with the now-Flemish Katholieke Universiteit Leuven remaining in the original campus and the Université Catholique de Louvain moving to a newly constructed campus in a planned town, Louvain-la-Neuve (New Leuven), deeper inside Wallonia. While both the Ghent campaign and the Leuven conflict centred on universities, the conflicts were not about university policy or the structure of the institutions themselves. Rather, they were conflicts-in-miniature, where wider tension around language and culture between Flanders and Wallonia came to bear. Despite the differences in structure and the occasional emphasis on linguistic concerns, higher education has not featured prominently in Belgian nationalist debates. The reasons for this are similar to those in Spain: as a low-fee jurisdiction, Belgium lacks a salient public policy issue in higher education where divergence can serve a political purpose. Belgium is typically classified as a “conservative” welfare state regime (Esping-Anderson, 1990; Pechar & Andres, 2011). Such regimes use social policy to reinforce existing social structures. As such, while conservative regimes often feature low tuition fees, expansion of the system and increased access to higher education are low priorities (Pechar & Andres, 2011). Similarly, Belgian institutions tended to develop along the state-driven, 19th century European model, which means there is no particular “Flemish” or “Walloon” university traditions to organize around, as there is in Scotland. More recently, the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has come to define the organization and evolution of Belgian institutions (De Wit et al, 2019). Together, these realities tend to reduce the importance of higher education in policy debates, thereby limiting its usefulness to nationalist political actors. The role of higher education policy in nationalist discourse is also constrained by the heavy - at times, exclusive - focus of the Flemish independence movement on Belgian’s income support system (Béland & Lecours, 2005, 2008). For much of Belgium’s history, French-speaking Wallonia was the country’s industrial powerhouse, while Flanders was considered rural and under-developed. With the decline of traditional industry, and the success of Flanders in developing a post-industrial economic base, this situation is now flipped. The relatively wealthy Flemish are “mobilized against redistribution and regional transfers” (Béland & Lecours, 2008, p. 193) as this is seen as an unfair movement of wealth from prosperous Flanders to dependent Wallonia. This push for the federalization of income support has dominated Belgian politics from the 1980s. The most active nationalist party in the 20th century was the People’s Union, or Volksunie, which was a centrist party with members across the political spectrum, organized around the push for greater Flemish
201 autonomy. After years of declining political fortunes, the party split into socialist, liberal and centre-right wings. The centre-right faction, known as the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) has taken up Volksunie’s “big tent” politics, and has done very well in recent elections. In the 2019 campaign, the N-VA received over 50 per cent of the Flemish vote. The election was also notable for the rise of the far-right nationalist party, Vlaams Belang. Indeed, Flanders voted overwhelmingly for right-wing nationalist and separatist parties, while Wallonia voted left (Cerulus et al., 2019). This outcome reflects the increasing paralysis of Belgian’s political system, split along regional and ideological lines; the country has had difficulty forming stable government since 2011. At the time of this writing, and despite the vote occurring in March of 2019, a government has not yet been formed, although a caretaker administration has been put in place to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. All of this to say that the political dynamics of Flemish nationalism depart from the pattern in Scotland and Quebec, in that they are dominated by right-of-centre parties and dysfunctional regional politics. This political orientation, and the historical opposition to the Belgian income-support program, makes the N-VA and similar parties less likely to embrace activist policies. Moreover, the political deadlock that has characterized Belgium’s politics means that polarization along linguistic and cultural lines limits the manifestation of nationalism in social policy. Higher education is thus largely absent from the at-times rancorous national debate between Flanders and Wallonia.
Refining the framework
Together, Quebec, Catalonia, and Flanders help to enrich our understanding of the nationalism-social policy nexus and its impact on higher education policy. Quebec, like Scotland, demonstrates how higher education can became linked to nationalist movements and deployed in powerful ways, both for and against the sub-state government. Conversely, higher education plays a much smaller role in the independence movements within Catalonia and Flanders. This does not undermine the nationalism-social policy nexus as it relates to higher education; rather, it reinforces the view that context matters in politics, and the unique historical, cultural and linguistic character of a sub-state region will influence whether and how higher education policy is implicated in nationalist mobilization. As demonstrated by Scotland and Quebec, higher education needs to be meaningfully linked to notions of identity and community values in order to be useful in nationalist arguments. There also needs to be a salient issue within the higher education policy space to make activism in this area useful for
202 nationalist political actors. Tuition fees have been - and continue to be - extremely controversial in Scotland and Quebec, and command significant public attention. Flanders and Catalonia lack a similarly visible higher education issue due to their low-fee policies, although like Quebec, language concerns may play a role in higher education policy development in both regions. In the case of Flanders, salience is further undermined by the relatively low priority given to access and expansion issues. Without policy salience, nationalist governments will not find it useful to highlight the links between their higher education policies and the values of the community. Divergence according to the nationalism- social policy nexus also requires a policy-activist nationalist political party to be in power long enough to institute divergent policies, as in Scotland and Quebec. In Catalonia, nationalist parties are both centrist and social democratic, which does not allow for the same political coherence as the SNP and PQ deliver in Scotland and Quebec. Modern Flemish nationalism is decidedly right wing and unusually focused on the issue of income support (although the rise of Vlaams Belang has also thrust immigration into the debate), which restricts the scope for innovation in social policy. Overall, the nationalism-social policy nexus is evident in Scotland, Quebec, Catalonia, and Flanders in different ways and in different issues, but can only be said to be driving significant policy divergence in higher education in Scotland and Quebec.
203 10. After “No” - Scottish Higher Education After the Referendum
The “No” vote on September 14th did not end conversations around Scottish autonomy. In the closing days of the referendum campaign, a shock poll put the Yes side narrowly ahead on the No campaign, 51 per cent to 49 per cent. In response, the leaders of the UK’s three largest political parties - Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, Labour leader Ed Milliband and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg - came together to make “the Vow,” a promise published on the front page of the Daily Record newspaper to deliver “faster, safer and better change” for the people of Scotland if they voted to remain in the UK. The Vow promised “extensive new powers” and a commitment that spending decisions on the National Health Service “will be a matter for the Scottish Parliament” (Clegg, 2014). It is not clear whether the Yes campaign’s lead was real or a polling blip, and the effectiveness of the Vow in shifting public opinion is unknown. Yet, the No campaign carried the day, which left the UK parties to make good on their promise. The day after the referendum, the UK government quickly moved to establish the Scotland Devolution Commission, led by a former governor of the BBC, Lord Smith of Kelvin. Commonly referred to as the Smith Commission, its mandate was to, “convene cross- party talks and facilitate an inclusive engagement process across Scotland to produce, by 30 November 2014, Heads of Agreement with recommendations for further devolution of powers to The Scottish Parliament” (Scottish Government, 2018). Two months was a tight timeline for examination of additional constitutional change, but Lord Smith delivered his report on time. Smith’s recommendations were significant. Perhaps most politically symbolic was the suggestion that the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government should be stated as permanent in UK legislation. Up to that point, The Scottish Parliament had been a creation of the UK legislature, by virtue of the Scotland (1998) Act. It was also suggested that all elections in Scotland – everything from local councils to national contests for seats in the Westminster Parliament - should be under Scottish control. This change would, for example, allow the Scottish Government to extend the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds, which had been an SNP campaign plank (16-year-olds were allowed to vote in the referendum). Perhaps most significantly, the Commission recommended increasing the Scottish Parliament’s control of taxation, which would increase its ability to raise revenue (SPICe, 2015). Many of the Smith Commission’s recommendations ultimately found their way into the Scotland (2016) Act, which devolved “additional taxation and welfare spending controls to the Scottish
204 Government…It is estimated that around 40 per cent of total tax income and an additional 2.5 billion pounds in social spending will be under control of Holyrood” (McTavish, 2016, p. 80). The key informant interviews conducted for this study in many cases occurred in the period between the referendum vote and the release of the Smith Commission report. It was thus interesting to hear respondents speculate on the possible outcomes. Said one respondent:
So I suppose the big question is how much money will the Scottish government get, how will they get it, and until all these negotiations going on right now, all the Smith Commission looking at trying to get these competing, not competing, but overlapping proposals that were put forward by the three Unionist parties, how to get some consensus out of that. I know Smith, I worked with him when I was on a committee with the BBC. He’s a businessman. Doesn’t suffer fools, kind of stuff. I’m sure he was picked because he’s a tough guy who can, if anybody can bring three parties together and get them to agree on something, where there is already a fair amount of agreement, there is still quite a lot of…the Conservatives have got a much more radical income tax devolution than Labour. I’m not quite sure where the Liberal Democrats are, somewhere in the middle perhaps. Trying to get them to agree to a compromise on that, basically that’s what’s going to happen. And that will affect the way the money comes to Scotland” (academic, ancient university).
Several other respondents remarked on the accelerated timeline of the Smith Commission, and the unlikelihood of significant change emerging from the process:
And now the whole thing has got to be done and dusted in a few months. And all the stakeholders have got to put in their views about this review in the next two weeks. It’s less than two weeks, it’s like 12 days now they’ve got. So having promised this massive change, don’t worry this is not the status quo there will be change, they’re simply not going to deliver. There’s no way they can deliver it. They’ll deliver some very minor things, and almost nothing about taxation. So, this will not allow Scotland the scope to determine effectively its own spending and taxation priorities (academic, ancient university).
This respondent felt that the limited scope for change will also constrain policy innovation in the higher education space:
The balance between spending and taxation. It won’t allow Scotland to say, well, we won’t have university fees, but we’ll change the tax structure in such a way, say, we’ll make it more progressive so that graduates don’t end up benefiting from it or anyone else, we’ll make some changes on the tax side to restore the progressivity. They won’t be able to do that. They won’t be able to say, well, higher education is important because there’s an economic return to it, and we’ll pick up the taxation from those economic benefits. We’ll have pretty much the status quo, with set rates of income taxation, which puts a lot of pressure on spending (academic, ancient university).
205 In many respects, this criticism of the process were indeed borne out by the results. Despite acquiring some new powers over taxation, the Barnett Formula continues to operate in Scotland, tying the block grant received by the Scottish Government to increases and decreases in the overall level of spending by the Westminster Parliament. Revenue raised through newly devolved taxation powers is simply deducted from the Barnett grant, meaning that neither the UK or Scottish governments are any worse (or better) off due to the transfer of tax powers, a key recommendation of the Smith Commission . Due to this arrangement, it is argued that Scotland lacks a “hard budget constraint” that allows “the Scottish Parliament and Government to spend without having to consider all of the tax and, therefore, political consequences in Scotland, of that spending” (Hallwood & MacDonald, 2016, p. 104). At the same time, Scotland’s budget remains firmly tied to Westminster through Barnett consequentials, and the Scottish Parliament is unable to generate significant new revenue through its tax powers - any money raised through additional taxation is effectively clawed back through a reduction to the block grant from Westminster. Overall, it appears the Smith Commission has had a minimal effect on the direction of higher education policy in Scotland. This policy area was already fully devolved, and thus no new powers could be delivered through a new constitutional settlement. Neither did the Scotland Act significantly increase the Scottish Government’s revenue, preventing the possibility of significant new investment in the sector. One respondent expressed concern over such an arrangement, questioning how beneficial it would be for Scotland generally:
I’m not sure how it will affect it in detail, except that much more of the money the Scottish budget has will be determined by Scottish income tax rates, and all that kind of stuff. And presumably what the London treasury will do, they’ll continue to collect the income tax, but then a chunk of that, depending on how the Smith agreement comes out, that will determine that part of the Scottish budget. And so there will be less dependence on the Barnett Formula as a sort of funding formula. And I could see that being to Scotland’s disadvantage actually, relatively speaking. At the moment, we do so well out of the Barnett formula for historical reasons (academic, ancient university).
Another political conversation that emerged in the wake of the referendum vote was around the idea of English Votes for English Laws (EVEL). This concept was an update of the West Lothian Question, a phrase attributed to former Labour MP Tam Dalyell. It refers to the fact that, given administrative devolution, MPs representing Scottish constituencies in the Westminster Parliament would continue to vote on issues affecting primarily England, while English MPs often had no such power in relation to Scottish matters. This issue became more
206 acute with the re-founding of the Scottish Parliament, essentially removing most social policy from the purview of Westminster. In practice, this meant that Scottish Labour MPs could vote to increase tuition fees (as they did in 2003) for students in England, while Scottish students would remain unaffected. Said one respondent:
The West Lothian Question- it has been around since Gladstone in the 1880s. And it came back in the 1970s. And when they, it was the top-up fees, 2003, when Blair introduced these top-up fees. The £3,000 fee. He only got it through with the support of Scottish MPs. It wasn’t the Labour government imposing Scottish policy on England against the wishes of the conservatives, he did it to discipline his own party, which I though was constitutionally outrageous (academic, ancient university).
EVEL proposals, where English MPs would have the only vote on exclusively English issues, had been circulating for some time, but in the 2015 UK general election - the first following the Scottish referendum - all three major party manifestos contained some form of EVEL protocol. The promise to examine greater powers for Scotland had the additional effect of stimulating new conversations around English-only votes:
The issue of the English Votes for English Laws came back again immediately because the unionist parties got themselves into a total mess in the last week of the referendum campaign. They panicked, and they came out with this bizarre statement - the Vow - which they put on the front page of the paper (academic, ancient university).
The Conservatives won an outright majority in this election, and shortly thereafter moved to implement an EVEL system, approved in October 2015 and first used the following January. English MPs now arguably have more control over issues that only, or primarily, affect England. This is an interesting indirect consequence of devolution and the Independence Referendum, the full impact of which has not been fully examined. However, at least one respondent felt this procedural change was important, particularly in the sphere of higher education:
My own view is that English universities are a matter for the English people to resolve, and we shouldn’t think that’s a legitimate matter for Scottish MPs to intervene in (academic, ancient university).
There have, from time to time, been calls for actual devolution of English matters to an English assembly, as either a constituent part of the Westminster Parliament, or some sort of new structure. In 2004, a series of referendums were planned in the Northeast, Northwest and
207 Yorkshire and Humber regions on whether to establish new regional assemblies with devolved powers. In the end, only the Northeast referendum was held, and the proposal was roundly defeated, 77.9 per cent to 22.1 per cent. Beyond EVEL proposals, the question of devolution to England or to English regions has not received much attention in the wake of the Scottish Referendum. Said one interview respondent:
At the moment there is no appetite really for a separate English Parliament. At the moment there is no appetite for devolved regions in England…There is an appetite for having stronger local councils in England with maybe more responsibility over areas like health and education, but certainly devolved fiscal powers, that’s a big issue (academic, ancient university).
At least for the time being, there does not seem to be a real prospect for greater devolution in England, and in the wake of the Smith Commission, likely little appetite to revisit the devolved powers of Scotland. Beyond constitutional change, respondents tended to believe that the “No” referendum vote would have limited impact on the higher education sector, and the status quo was likely to persist. Said one respondent:
I see no reason to suggest that the Scottish government, certainly under the present, you know as dominated by the Scottish National Party, is going to shift in terms of its position, and that is that higher education is enormously important for Scotland, for Scottish society and for the Scottish economy, and will continue to fund it reasonably well, although there will be university principals, right as we speak right now, jumping up and down and saying that recently or for the next financial year there's to a real terms reduction but, you know…” (academic, Robbins university)
In particular, respondents tended to agree that the free-tuition policy would be preserved:
Well, I guess the status quo continues. There have been very strong commitments by the SNP to no tuition fees. There is going to be more austerity in Scotland. The cuts have been slightly held off before the referendum, for obvious political reasons. So there will be questions about whether the commitments are affordable or not (anonymous respondent).
This sentiment was echoed by another respondent, who observed:
The SNP is committed to not having tuition fees for undergraduates. And as long as they are in power, one way or another, and as long as they can continue with that policy they will do so. I see no, absolutely nothing on the horizon, particularly by the education minister, or the cabinet secretary for education or lifelong learning or whatever it is called that is consistent with anything but a continuation of the status quo. So basically what this means is the universities are going to be under increasing
208 financial pressure (academic, Robbins university).
There was a definite theme that emerged through the interviews around the sustainability of the tuition fee policy in the longer term, which is hinted at in the previous quotations. Without significant new revenue powers, and in a context where the UK government is still pursuing austerity policies, spending constraint would be a real possibility for the Scottish Government. And the tuition policy is very expensive. Said another respondent:
The issue of fees is likely to come back again once people in other sectors really start to suffer from the squeeze that is going to happen. And then people will start looking at universities and asking what’s this all about. And the universities themselves will start arguing that they should be allowed to charge fees. Which hitherto they haven’t. In fact, when the top-up fee came in 2003, there was only one Scottish university that supported it, St. Andrew’s, which gets most of its income privately anyway. That I think will begin to change. The choice is between charge your students fees, or lose the funding, I think they will say let’s have a fee regime. That’s got to come back at some point” (academic, ancient university).
There was a sense of inevitability to these predictions, almost a “it was nice while it lasted, but we all knew it couldn’t last forever” resignation. This attitude can be seen in the following:
At what point do the universities here start straining at the leash, they want, all universities always, historically, want to grow. Scotland wants to, too. We’re kind of lucky because I think our 18 year-olds are falling at the moment, between us and the rest of the UK, we’ve got a demographic drop. I don’t think it’s a sharp as it is in other parts of the UK, not sure about that. But it will start to pick up again. If you look at my daughter’s age group, it peaked, there was a big baby boom in 2006. So that comes along quite soon. You know, that group is going into university in 2020, it’s not far. So you look at demographics, you look at global pressures for graduates, all of these things, where are we in these debates. And I think that at some point, we’re going to end up with a contribution-based system, but the journey to it, and the speed of that journey is incredibly hard (former civil servant).
Said another:
So, basically, we’ve got a funding model just now that doesn’t work in Scotland. I’m not saying the one in the UK works, the one in England works. But we’ve got one that doesn’t work. And it’s being kept going with a bit of smoke and mirrors just now. But whether that can be sustained long-term is going to be an important question(academic, post-92 university).
This notion that the tuition fee policy cannot be sustained is not just about financial constraints. Several respondents noted that the current policy, particularly in terms of its
209 interaction with the student financial aid system, is inconsistent with the Scottish Government’s stated goal of widening participation in higher education:
I think we’ve got a situation where we have taken an approach in relation to fees which is one that I’ve very much supported, but it’s resulted in levels of public funding required to prevent a gap opening up between universities north and south of the border which is — it’s not as significant, particularly with these kinds of economic constraints and we’ve also set some, I think, quite justifiable stretching objectives with regard to widening access, and it’s difficult to see how all of that can be done with the kind of model we’ve got, I just —I can’t see how you can continue to load up the loan component of student support, while still aspiring to encourage a greater proportion of people from poorer and less-traditional backgrounds to go to university (Member of Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrats).
Related to this idea was a sense that the issue of funding for further education colleges would continue to be a problem for the Scottish Government. While, as we have seen, the actual impact of the reductions in funding are a matter of some controversy, several respondents highlighted this policy area as a concern from both access and workforce development perspectives:
So all of the colleges are on one level struggling on financial terms…basically, we’ve got a problem in Glasgow here, where we’ve got, actually on one level, we’ve got over-provision in a situation where the government is reducing funding. If the government restored its funding, this would make like a lot easier for everybody. So, that’s an example of what will become an increasingly important political issue…and then, you know there are the ongoing issues to do with widening access. The fact that, up to now, we have not been doing this as well as we should be doing. That reflects deeply rooted problems, not just in the higher education system but in the school system, which is part of the reason we do so badly here, because people from disadvantaged backgrounds often don’t do well in school. Everyone agrees that those are pressures that need to be addressed….There could be increasing questions raised about whether we need to be thinking about these issues in a different way in Scotland from how we’ve been doing it up to now. The role of the colleges have been very important in that respect, but as I’ve said, if the colleges’ position is weakened, which it has been, will they be able to maintain their role? (Academic, post-92 university & FE college board member).
On the student funding side, the obvious question is going to be how much longer can we go on with this very expensive system which has been funded partially by not allowing the FE sector to grow as much, which impacts on the ability to offer opportunities to people who are needing them acutely, to get back into the labour market or to upgrade their market skills (former civil servant).
A former SNP cabinet secretary - who had been involved with the college policy -
210 acknowledged that the issue around FE funding was likely to continue. But he also provided an aspirational view of the sector in the wake of the No vote, something relatively rare among respondents:
There will be a question mark about the relative balance of funding between universities and colleges, I’m sure of that going forward. You know, I’ve taken pretty much a self-denying ordinance in talking about education in public over the last year, but I don’t think anybody would doubt that that will continue to be part of the debate. But I would hope that the Scottish government would continue to invest in the global excellence of Scottish universities in the research excellence of Scottish universities. I would hope they would continue to develop the outcome agreement process for a clarity about what university should deliver, and I would hope that the Scottish education system would continue to feed through a very large number of its young people and particularly into higher education, but the barriers between higher and further education will continue to be reduced (former cabinet secretary, SNP).
The point about outcome agreements - a key plank of the SNP’s governance reforms - is an interesting one, as several respondents pointed to the relationship between government and universities as a potential area for continued friction post-referendum. Said one:
You're going to see what's been happening in recent years, that is a very - a much closer relationship, sometimes an uncomfortable relationship between the Scottish Funding Council and the universities (academic, Robbins university).
One interviewee suggested that the higher education sector already views the SNP with some suspicion, on account of their nation-building project occasionally producing a nationalizing tendency that impinges on university autonomy. Due to this perception, the SNP has actually been reluctant to go to push too hard on accountability measures. Under a new government, pressure for greater state control might actually increase:
The Scottish Government is very active on that, pushing the universities very hard, and at some time, especially if there’s a Labour government in Scotland, they will put more conditionality on maintaining support. You’ve got to deliver more access if you’re going to get this government, continuing government support. The SNP are a little bit reluctant to do that, because they would be accused of taking over universities, interfering with academic autonomy. People are suspicious of them (academic, ancient university).
Tensions over autonomy may prompt some of the institutions to push back and reassert some of their authority, as suggested by one respondent:
I think Scottish universities might try to loosen their links with the state, because one
211 of the tensions over the past couple of years has been to do with university autonomy. The post-16 education act was quite strongly resisted by universities when it went through the Scottish Parliament. That enabled the SNP to exact penalties for non- compliance with widening-access targets. Scottish universities, particularly older, more selective ones, felt their autonomy was being impinged. The Scottish Government is also trying to have greater control of university governance, and that’s being resisted (anonymous respondent).
Beyond constitutional change, the sustainability of the fee structure and border disputes about university autonomy, most respondents agreed that the significant reform would be unlikely in the wake of a “No” vote. In particular, the UK-wide research system, driven by the research councils, would continue to be important to the Scottish universities as a major source of revenue. Likewise, the pressure to compete internationally and to forge new international links would continue, particularly for the ancients. As discussed in chapter six, research and internationalization are largely forces for convergence, which will continue to act as a counterforce to notions of “Scottish” higher education and knit Scotland’s universities ever more tightly into the UK and global spheres. Certain universities stand to benefit from this process more than others - Edinburgh and St. Andrew’s already have significant international profile, and will leverage their strengths to further advantage on the global stage. Writing in 2015, Riddell et al note that, “[f]ar from the UK higher education system fragmenting, there may be growing homogeneity, with a sharpening of institutional hierarchies which transcends national borders” (p. 247). In the immediate aftermath of the referendum vote, with membership surging, the SNP seemed likely to continue its electoral success in the 2016 Scottish Parliament Elections. Indeed, under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon, the party again formed government, although it lost its previous majority by four seats. The big surprise of that election was the resurgence of the Scottish Conservatives under the charismatic leadership of Ruth Davidson. Once thought all but politically moribund, the Conservatives surpassed Scottish Labour to become the second-largest party in parliament. The rise of a centre-right party troubles the notion, expressed by many respondents, that political competition in Scotland occurs on the centre-left. While certainly more centrist than the Westminster party, the rise of the Conservatives nevertheless suggests a shift back towards the centre in Scottish politics. There are several reasons for this change. The Conservatives - whose official name is the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party - are unabashedly pro-Union, and may have attracted the support of “No” voters who wanted an electoral option clearly in favour of the constitutional status quo. Labour is competing directly with the SNP on the centre-left, and vote splitting in
212 certain ridings appears to have benefitted the Conservatives. Much of the Conservatives’ success in 2016 can also be attributed to Davidson, who consistently polled as the most popular party leader in Scotland (Wright, 2017). A more significant political earthquake occurred just six weeks after the parliamentary election - the UK’s referendum on its membership in the European Union. In the Brexit vote, as it became known, 51.9 per cent of UK citizens voted to leave the EU, upending nearly four decades of increased integration with Europe. Significantly, only 38 per cent of Scots voted to leave, and every Scottish riding had a majority “remain” vote. This significant majority obscures the fact that, like the UK generally, Scotland has become more Eurosceptic over the past decades. Shortly after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, 11 per cent of Scots wanted to leave the EU, while 27 per cent wanted the powers of the EU reduced. In more recent polling, these figures jumped to 25 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively (Wright, 2017). The actual vote in favour of Brexit - 38 per cent - suggests that Euroscepticism continues to grow. The growth in anti-EU sentiment also helps to explain the rising electoral fortunes of the Scottish Conservatives, who are traditionally the political party most skeptical of EU membership. Still, while Scotland is more Eurosceptic than it was at the turn of the century, a significant majority of Scots wished to stay in the EU. The decision to move forward with Brexit - which was finally achieved, after tortuous negotiations and parliamentary wrangling, on January 31, 2020 - activated the old narrative of unpopular policies being imposed on Scotland by the central UK state without Scottish electoral support. The irony was also not lost on Scottish voters that the No side in the referendum campaign questioned the ease with which post-independence Scotland would transition into the EU, suggesting that the potential economic disruption of being suddenly outside Europe would be an intolerable risk. For the UK, less than two-years later, to take itself out of the EU against Scotland’s wishes seemed more than a little of hypocritical. It is interesting that, when asked to assess future developments and risks for the higher education section, almost none of the interview respondents mentioned a potential departure from the EU. In fact, only one interviewee mentioned a possible “in-out” referendum on EU membership, stating:
The UK knows the benefits of being part of the EU, the trade benefits. But they don’t like the costs of it. They don’t like signing up to this legislation they don’t like. They don’t like this immigration, the free movement of people. They like all the benefits, which they never talk about. And all they do is moan about the cost. This is why this referendum is coming up. This will be your next research project. The referendum on
213 the EU membership. You get these racist parties like UKIP. “Oh, we just want to get control of our borders back.” So if we leave the EU, we don’t have to agree to the free movement of people. You can have hard borders. Anybody who wants to live here will need to get a visa. Like the old days (academic, Robbins university).
Timing is a partial explanation - while an EU referendum had been a recurring issue within the governing Conservative party, a specific pledge on holding a referendum was only included in the Tories’ 2015 election platform. After securing a majority government in that same election, Prime Minister David Cameron followed through and scheduled the vote for June 2016. At the time of the interviews for this study, an EU referendum was likely not top- of-mind for most respondents, especially since they were either in the midst of, or had just come out of, the independence referendum vote. It is also possible that many of them did not think a vote to leave the EU was a plausible outcome. Indeed, the results of the 2016 referendum came as a shock to many inside the UK and around the world. So while respondents may have been aware of the possibility of an EU referendum, they likely gauged the risk as low. In any case, the seismic nature of Brexit is a reminder of how quickly the political ground can shift. Given that the majority of Scots voted to remain in the European Union, and that the SNP is committed to the EU as a matter of policy, Brexit quickly became a political wedge which re-energized calls for Scottish independence. In December of 2019, a UK general election - the third in a little over four years - saw committed Brexiteer Boris Johnson take back a Conservative majority in a landslide victory. This outcome all but assured that the UK would exit the European Union as planned. But while it was a very good election for the Conservatives generally, the Scottish Tories suffered a setback, falling well behind the SNP who won 48 of 59 Scottish Westminster seats and increased their vote share from the 2017 general election by eight percentage points (Curtice, 2019; Langford 2019). The SNP had campaigned on a hard “Stop Brexit” campaign, and their electoral success quickly translated into calls for another independence referendum. Just days after the election, Nicola Sturgeon issued a demand to “bypass Section 30 and pave the way for another independence vote” (Langford, 2019). The 2014 referendum had been authorized under Section 30 of the Scotland Act (1998), and under existing rules the Scottish Parliament would need to seek another Section 30 order from the Westminster Parliament in order to proceed with a second independence referendum. In her statement, Sturgeon sought to have additional powers transferred to the Scottish Parliament, on a permanent basis, that would allow a second referendum to be called without the approval of the UK. According to Sturgeon:
214 The stunning election win last night for the SNP renews, reinforces and strengthens the mandate we have from previous elections to offer the people of Scotland a choice over their future. That mandate says that it is for the Scottish Parliament, not a Westminster government, to decide whether and where there should be a new referendum on independence (as quoted in Langford, 2019).
A month later, and perhaps predictably, Boris Johnson rebuffed this demand in a formal letter to Sturgeon:
You and your predecessor made a personal promise that the 2014 Independence Referendum was a "once in a generation" vote. The people of Scotland voted decisively on that promise to keep our United Kingdom together, a result which both the Scottish and UK Governments committed to respect in the Edinburgh Agreement. The UK Government will continue to uphold the democratic decision of the Scottish people and the promise that you made to them. For that reason, I cannot agree to any request for a transfer of power that would lead to further independence referendums. Another independence referendum would continue the political stagnation that Scotland has seen for the last decade, with Scottish schools, hospitals and jobs again left behind because of a campaign to separate the UK.
The danger of absolutist political statements - such as Salmond and Sturgeon’s “once in a lifetime” pledge - is on full display in Johnson’s letter. Nevertheless, it drew swift condemnation not only from Sturgeon, but many other political leaders. Richard Leonard, leader of the generally pro-Union Scottish Labour Party, issued a particularly strong-worded statement:
The people of Scotland rejected independence in 2014, but Scotland remains divided. I believe that home rule within the UK is the only viable option that stands a chance of healing the divisions in our society. We can’t wait for a UK Labour government to deliver this, so we must demand it now and mobilise for radical change” (as quoted in Brooks, 2020).
As a small sidebar to the Brexit drama, Scotland again pursued higher education policy divergence in the wake of the vote to leave. In April of 2019, the Scottish Government announced that EU students will continue to study for free in Scotland, even though such consideration would no longer be required outside of the EHEA. In a statement, Further and Higher Education Minister Richard Lochhead said, "Brexit remains the greatest threat facing our colleges and universities and I hope that, in a time of uncertainty, this announcement will provide the clarity that our academic institutions need to plan for the 2020-21 academic year” (as quoted in McIvor, 2019). This commitment was not open-ended, as the Scottish Government has only indicated that students beginning their courses, and those already in
215 study, by 2020 will not be charged tuition fees for the duration of their programs. Indeed, recent events have apparently prompted a rethink of this policy. Still, it is striking how the Scottish Government continued to use higher education - and particularly tuition fees - to draw a sharp contrast with the rest of the UK (where EU students paid, and will continue to pay, fees). Since January 2020, the Scottish and UK Parliaments have been deadlocked over this issue, with the UK government flatly refusing to consider another referendum, and with the Scottish political class unusually aligned over the need for, if not a referendum, at least the power to call a referendum. No negotiations or discussions are currently planned, and the issue has been overtaken by more urgent concerns. If a second referendum - or IndyRef2 - were to be held, the dynamics would likely be different than in 2014. The questions of EU membership would likely be the primary focus of the campaign, underpinned by familiar narratives about Scottish values and aspirations threatened by decisions imposed by England. In this context, we might expect higher education policy to play a smaller role than in 2014. In any case, it would be fascinating to observe the different dynamics and emphasis around higher education between two referendums, particularly if they occurred so close together. There are some things that no one could have predicted in 2014. As Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson were arguing about Section 30 and once-in-a-lifetime votes in late 2019, news was starting to emerge out of Wuhan, China of a mysterious new virus. Within months, SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, had spread around the world, causing countries and economies to go into lockdown. Higher education was not immune, with universities and colleges shuttering their campuses and racing to move their course offering to online and remote formats. The financial toll of the virus on these institutions is likely to be significant. Universities Scotland (2020), an advocacy group, has estimated that the sector stands to lose £500 million in 2020-21, due primarily to an anticipated drop in international students. The potential financial impact of COVID-19 on both universities and the Scottish Government has brought concerns to the surface about the long-term sustainability of the free tuition policy. Reform Scotland, a right-leaning think tank, published a report in May 2020 arguing for, in effect, a return of the graduate endowment regime where students would pay back a certain portion of the cost of their education once their salaries rose to the Scottish average. Not only would this contribution help manage the impact of the pandemic, but would also address underlying financial problems in the sector and the effective cap of Scottish student places imposed by the existing tuition fee policy. Said the group’s director:
216 We would all like to live in a world where ‘free’ university education works for the universities, the students and the taxpayer. But it’s time to admit that it doesn’t. Demand on the public purse is high and only going to rise – our politicians should have the courage and the foresight to challenge some old shibboleths in order to prepare Scotland for the challenges ahead…The levying of tuition fees has long been an intensely ideological and political issue in Scotland. It should be neither. This is about the survival of our university sector, including institutions renowned around the globe and essential to our economic future (Reform Scotland, 2020).
In the wake of social, political and economic turmoil of COVID-19, sustaining the free tuition policy will require significant political will. In July of 2020, the Scottish government walked back its commitment on EU fees, stating that, as part of its COVID-19 sustainability plan, EU students would have to pay fees beginning in 2021-22 (Scottish Government 2020). But as we have seen, the SNP is deeply invested in free education for Scottish-domiciled students, and have given no sign that they are willing to revisit this policy. But with another parliamentary election looming in 2021, it is not impossible that another party will form government, and they may be more willing to consider a new funding scheme. Right now, the SNP enjoys a significant lead in the polls, but if the six years since the Independence Referendum have shown anything, it is that nothing is certain in politics. It is tempting to view referenda as the last word on a political question, a definitive statement by voters on their preferences. But the 2014 Independence Referendum did not end political turmoil in Scotland. Rather, it kicked off a period of constitutional change, political shifts and democratic upheavals. But through it all, the free-tuition policy has remained in place while the Scottish Government has continued to make higher education a priority. As countries around the world reckon with the destructive effects of a global pandemic, it is an open question as to how long the SNP’s policies can be maintained in their current form.
217 11. Conclusion: Higher Education and Nationalism
On May 20, 2020 Heriot-Watt University removed a large stone monument from its campus. The stone had stood for less than six years, since its unveiling by Alex Salmond as his last official act as Scotland’s First Minister before resigning following the defeat of his Yes campaign. On the stone were inscribed the words Salmond had spoken nine years before: “The rocks will melt in the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scotland’s students.” This particular rock had not melted, but it had been spirited away into storage, “until an alternative location is found for it in future” (Marlborough, 2020). Salmond himself had walked a rocky path since his resignation. On January 24, 2019, he was arrested and charged with nine counts of sexual assault, two of attempted rape, two of indecent assault and one of breach of the peace (Associated Press, 2019). He was eventually acquitted of all the charges, and his allies were quick to suggest that he had been the victim of a political witch- hunt by foes within the Scottish National Party itself (Carrell & Brooks, 2020). Still, the ordeal has left a stain on his reputation. The stone may be gone, but free tuition for Scottish students remains. The SNP is committed to this signature policy, and has so far stuck with it through the uncertainties of constitutional change, Brexit and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. The full financial impact - both on governments and institutions - of the latter crisis has yet to be fully understood, but it is likely to be significant. Governments everywhere will struggle with the immense cost of supporting their economies, public services and citizens in the face of the unprecedented disruption posed by the virus. This financial dislocation may prove to be the most significant threat to free tuition in Scotland, and sustaining the policy will test the political will of the governing party. The SNP, having drawn a definitive line in the sand, may find itself unwilling and unable to back away from the commitment made in March 2011. But if the SNP’s political fortunes should falter, a new government may come to power on May 6, 2021. Less bound to the policy, they may be forced to introduce some form of student contribution, ending a rather extraordinary experiment in student finance. In the preceding pages, I have argued that divergence in Scottish higher education policy, exemplified most clearly by the tuition fee policy, has been driven by a complex mix of history, identity, and nationalism. Emerging from the analysis are five key conclusions. First, there is indeed a distinct historical tradition of higher education in Scotland. It was well understood by academics and commentators in the 19th century, and the broad outlines of this tradition continue to resonate within the modern higher education sector and among those
218 who work in and around Scottish universities. This conclusion is borne out through an examination of the historical literature and through the comments made in the key informant interviews. This tradition has also become connected to modern notions of Scottish identity, re-centring on the questions of access and fairness that surround tuition fee policy. In turn, Scottish nationalists have harnessed these diffuse cultural values into a clear political proposition: equitable access is a Scottish value, the SNP is the champion of this value that is perennially under threat from the central UK state, and only independence can ensure that it is protected. The SNP’s proposition has created significant policy divergence in Scotland, and has been deployed effectively in successive parliamentary elections. Second, and most relevant to the research question at the heart of this dissertation, it is clear that higher education policy played a significant, if not central role, in the 2014 referendum campaign. The Yes side attempted to position higher education as the SNP had in previous elections, as a part of Scotland’s identity and a key component of its imagined success as an independent nation. The No campaign sought to highlight the potential risks to universities posed by independence, primarily in the areas of research funding and tuition fee revenue, turning the SNP’s emphasis on the importance of higher education against them. This dynamic was apparent through the media coverage around higher education, the various documents published by the opposing sides, and in the statements made by the interviewees. It appears that while social policy provides opportunities for sub-state nationalists to connect the values of their community to a particular political program, it also provides opportunities for the opponents to disrupt their narrative by calling attention to the risks and basic uncertainty of independence. Higher education came forward as an issue because it is meaningfully connected - both historically and by contemporary political actors - to notions of identity and values. It is this connection that also allowed pro-Union actors to enhance the overall sense of uncertainty attached to the prospect of independence. Scotland’s universities are important to Scottish citizens, and potential harm to the sector as the result of a Yes vote became part of a persuasive sense of unacceptable risk. It is worth noting here that the political efficacy of higher education policy – specifically tuition fees – appears to differ between regular parliamentary elections and the referendum vote. Tuition fees were arguably an important factor in the SNP’s electoral success in successive Scottish elections, but played a much more uncertain role within the independence debate. This reality serves as another important reminder that context matters in politics. Third, the analysis of policy divergence in Scottish higher education, and in the role this area played in the independence debate, also confirms, to varying degrees, all six of the
219 theoretical claims put forward by Béland and Lecours in their conception of the nationalism- social policy nexus. In particular, the case study of Scottish higher education during the referendum campaign demonstrates that “in developed multinational countries, both the state and at least one sub‐state government are likely to use social policy to foster and promote competing national solidarities and identities” and “social policy often becomes a major component of the effort of nationalist movements to build and consolidate national identity, and an important target for nationalist mobilization as well” (2008, p. 19). Béland & Lecours’ work examines the nationalism-social policy nexus across the welfare state systems of several countries. This paper deepens their analysis by demonstrating how the broader trends they describe are active in more granular policy areas. The findings of this study are thus a validation of their work, providing further confirmation that this is useful framework for understanding policymaking dynamics in multinational states. The fourth conclusion is that Scotland demonstrates the particular characteristics that must be present for the nexus to operate in higher education policymaking at the sub-state level. A meaningful and pre-existing connection between a policy area and political identity needs to be present for it be useful to sub-state nationalists. While this study cannot rule out the possibility of a sub-state government creating and deploying such a connection out of whole cloth, such invention is not evident in Scotland, Quebec, Catalonia and Flanders. In Quebec and Scotland, the connection between political identity and higher education is longstanding, while in Catalonia and Flanders there does not appear to be the same link between higher education and shared values. Indeed, the lack of this connection in Catalonia and Flanders has meant that higher education policy has played a limited role in nationalist debates. Within the policy area in question, there must also be a salient issue around which a sub-state government can mark out its distinctiveness from the overarching state. In both Scotland and Quebec, this issue is tuition fees. The lack of a similarly resonant issue in Catalonia and Flanders has again constrained the usefulness of higher education policy to nationalist political actors. The case of Scotland, supported by the other jurisdictions examined in this study, also suggests that for the nationalism-social policy nexus to drive significant policy divergence in the direction of more generous provision, there needs to be a stable political consensus around activist, state-led social policy. Where nationalism takes on a right-of-centre flavour, the extent of policy divergence is limited and may be characterized by retrenchment rather than expansion. Finally, this dissertation is the only study that I am aware of that directly examines the relationship between higher education and nationalist movements. The 2014 Scottish
220 referendum was, to date, a unique opportunity to observe this relationship in action. Referenda are rare birds generally, but especially so in jurisdictions where higher education has been a persistent focus of policymaking and public debate. This fortuitous combination of historical and political factors allows for the dynamics of this connection to be thoroughly explored. This dissertation thus provides an additional dimension for examining the relationship between higher education and the state, enriching our understanding of how political forces drive public policy and shape, support and challenge universities and other forms of postsecondary education. We often think of state power as unitary; that is, one central political authority exerting influence on the higher education system to satisfy its own nation-building or ideological goals. The case of Scotland suggests that higher education policy, by dint of its unique ability to embody political values and contribute to political and social development, is not only driven by what is useful to a particular country, but also by those who seek to re-negotiate or dismantle it. As such, the conclusions of this paper are useful to those examining policymaking dynamics – educational or otherwise – in complex multinational states. It is important to acknowledge the limitations of the research and conclusion contained within this dissertation. While the content analysis, which informed the discussion in chapter seven, performed well on tests of reliability and validity, we should nevertheless be cautious when generalizing its findings beyond the analytic sample of articles. This portion of the study was also confined to print articles, which is obviously (and increasingly) a small portion of the overall public discourse on an issue. Similarly, the key informant interviews were highly informative and rich in detail, but ultimately represent a very small cross-section of individuals and groups concerned with higher education in Scotland. Some voices were excluded, either by choice or by necessity, as many invitations to participate were declined or went unanswered (approximately one third). The voice of the further education colleges are noticeably absent, and individuals from this sector - such as college presidents - would undoubtedly have important insights to offer that would enrich the conclusions presented in this dissertation. As noted in chapter ten, much has happened since the 2014 referendum. It is likely that the views and ideas of the interview respondents may have shifted over time, particularly in regard to significant events like the Smith Commission, Brexit, and COVID-19. The data presented in this dissertation should therefore be viewed as a snapshot of a particular moment in time for Scotland’s higher education sector. I am confident that the findings presented in the preceding chapters is an illustrative one when considering the relationship between higher
221 education policy and nationalism, but we should also assume that this relationship has continued to evolve in Scotland since 2014. Happily, the limitations of this study are not intractable and can be addressed through further research. During the course of this research, a variety of promising avenues of further inquiry were identified. The content analysis in this paper was necessarily constrained by the scope of the project, but a deeper examination of how higher education appeared in the wider referendum discourse would be extremely useful. Radio and television coverage was largely excluded from this study, and would add an important dimension to the analysis. The use of social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, had already been well-established in political campaigns by the beginning of the 2014 referendum campaign. A significant amount of activity took place around referendum hashtags like #IndyRef, so it would be fascinating to examine how issues like tuition fees were discussed and disseminated through social networks. The Internet never forgets, as the saying goes, so much of this material remains archived and accessible online. Sifting through the thousands and Tweets and posts would be a massive undertaking, but would likely yield insights that would enrich and nuance the conclusions of this paper. Another promising avenue would be to expand the number of individuals interviewed as part of this study. The need to include FE college presidents have already been identified, but other groups would also provide important perspectives. It would be interesting to interview students and families (although identifying participants who were students in 2014 might prove difficult), and there are likely many more individuals working within and around the political, government and university sectors who could further advance our understanding of the nationalism-social policy nexus. While resource intensive, a survey-based analysis would allow public attitudes on Scottish higher education and independence to be explored on a larger scale. There is also an opportunity to expand on the other case studies examined in this study. My own analysis was limited by the availability of relevant material in English, and one suspects that primary and secondary materials available in Spanish, French and Dutch would yield a more sophisticated understanding of higher education policy in Quebec, Catalonia and Flanders. Many books could (and have) been written on the evolution of Quebec’s higher education sector, and Spain and Belgium’s sectors appear to be largely unexamined by English-speaking scholars. There is also a tendency to lump together systems that have been heavily influenced by the Napoleonic system or continental mode of university organization - i.e. much of Central Europe, excluding Germany and its satellites - which obscures local
222 dynamics in complex multinational states like Belgium and Spain. In any case, identifying research partners within these jurisdictions would help mitigate the language challenges, while enhancing the comprehensiveness of the case studies. Scottish nationalism continues to evolve in the face of changing political and social realities. While Prime Minister Boris Johnson has refused to countenance a second independence referendum, this is unlikely to quiet demands for a second vote of Scotland’s autonomy from the United Kingdom. Should a new referendum be held, it would present a lightning-strikes-twice opportunity to compare and contrast the use of higher education policy between referendum campaigns. While a future vote would likely be dominated by the European Union question, social policy is unlikely to be far from the surface. Even if a second referendum is not forthcoming, continued tensions between Scotland and the UK will likely create the conditions for more, not less, policy divergence across the breadth of social policy controlled by the Scottish Parliament. Examining these policy changes will continue to refine the nationalism-social policy nexus and, in the case of higher education policy, how universities interact with their patron governments. The headwinds of COVD-19 and the related recession will likely create unexpected developments that will variously support and challenge our understanding of how nationalism influences this relationship. An intriguing takeaway of this research, applicable beyond the sphere of higher education and into considerations of social programs generally, is the idea that public policy is seldom just a question of the best way to reach a stated outcome. Scotland’s tuition-fee policy is wrapped in ideas of equity and fairness, and is explicitly tied to the policy objective of increasing university participation among lower-income communities. As we have seen, it is questionable whether low- or free-tuition policies are sufficient to ensure greater access among traditionally under-represented groups. Scotland’s approach to student financial aid, for example, may somewhat undermine broader access to its universities. Additionally, it has been argued (and not always convincingly) that the free tuition policy has come at the expense of the further education colleges in Scotland, institutions traditionally more open to lower-income and mature students, and where a significant amount of higher education instruction occurs. Free tuition, the argument goes, overwhelmingly benefits the upper and middle classes, while deprived communities lose out on college spaces. But the fact that the free tuition policy fails to achieve its stated goals appears to be almost beside the point. In Scotland, as it is in many jurisdictions, tuition fee policy is often operates on a symbolic level. Its implicit purpose is to communicate a particular vision of the political community, based on social citizenship and communal values. It is an argument about what identity and
223 ideology, and in the case of Scotland, also about the future of the political community itself. It is my supposition that the free tuition policy is incoherent without the context of a nationalist movement rooted in both a semi-mythical past and an ideal view of the future. The symbolic power of the policy is what ultimately matters to Scottish nationalists. While I describe this symbolic function of policy within Scotland’s higher education system in broad terms, its existence and function needs to be more thoroughly theorized and analyzed. This promising avenue of research would also allow the conclusions of this dissertation to be extended more fully into the realm of political science, specifically the study of political motivation and voter behaviour. First articulated by Downs (1957), the rational voter model posits that both the decision to vote and how to vote involves a careful consideration of one’s interests and then the selection of an appropriate candidate that reflects those interests. This model has been challenged in recent years by the observation that voters often make irrational or emotional political choices. This behavioralist approach (for example, see Caplan, 2007; Westen, 2007; and Lakoff, 2008) would seem to account for the emotional and value-laden dynamics observed in my dissertation, but a definitive understanding would require a study of how the nationalism-social policy nexus generally, and higher education specifically, actually influences political choices. ScotCen Social Research has already taken some preliminary steps in this analysis, so their work would be an effective springboard into a deep examination of this topic. Ultimately, my hope is that this dissertation has suggested that the face of Scottish nationalism is less that of William Wallace, woad-dyed and brandishing a broadsword, and more the image of a student from modest means attending university lectures and gaining access to the middle class. Both images are mythical, and have been burnished and embellished over time. But it is clear that post-Union Scottish nationalism attached itself to certain institutions, and that this attachment has continued to echo down through the generations. It continues to play an important role in the ongoing development of Scotland’s higher education system. The connection between universities and Scottish identity and nationalism may not have the same durability as rocks standing firm in the sun, but we can expect this relationship to continue influencing how Scots think about, and how their governments manage, their centuries-old higher education legacy.
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240 Appendix A: Content Analysis Coding Frame
Article description 1. What month was the article released? 1. September 2013 2. October 2013 3. November 2013 4. December 2013 5. January 2014 6. February 2014 7. March 2014 8. April 2014 9. May 2014 10. June 2014 11. July 2014 12. August 2014 13. September 2014
2. Is the article a duplicate of another article already included in the study? 1. Yes 2. No
If “1”, do not continue.
3. What is the source of the article? 1. Daily newspaper (print or online) 2. Magazine (print or online) 3. Website/weblog (not affiliated to a print newspaper or broadcaster) 4. Radio/TV transcript 5. Other
4. Where is the news outlet that published/broadcast the article based? 1. Scotland 2. Rest of UK 3. Both (i.e. a news organization like the BBC that maintains a network of offices in both Scotland and the rest of the UK) 4. Not from the UK or Scotland
If “4” do not continue.
5. Is the article: 1. A news article/segment 2. A feature newspaper article (an in-depth piece over 1500 words 3. A magazine feature (in-depth piece over 3000 words) 4. A broadcast documentary (over 5 minutes in length) 5. An opinion/commentary piece (print) 6. An opinion/commentary piece (broadcast) 7. Letter to the editor 8. Other
241 If “7” do not continue.
Coverage of university/higher education policy
6. What is the depth of the article’s treatment of university or higher education policy? 1. The article does not mention university/higher education policy (false hit – for example, “Dr. Smith, an expert at the University of…”) 2. The article mentions university or higher education policy in passing (as an example of government policy, for instance) 3. The article is substantively about an aspect of university or higher education policy
If “1”, do not continue.
7. Does the article refer to research funding? 1. 1. Yes 2. 2. No 3. 3. Unable to say
8. Does the article refer to tuition fee policy? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
9. Does the article refer to tuition fee policy for European Union (EU) students? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
10. Does the article refer to tuition fee policy for rest-of-UK (not Scottish-domiciled) students? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
11. How does the article frame university and higher education policy? 1. As an issue connected to the referendum campaign 2. As an issue not connected to the referendum (discussing policy outside of the context of the campaign) 3. As an issue not connected to Scotland or the UK (discussing policy of another country, without reference to the referendum) 4. Unable to say
12. Does the author of the article present an opinion on the referendum debate?
1. Yes, the author favours the Yes (pro-independence) side 2. Yes, the author favours the No (anti-independence) side 3. The author of the article does not express his or her opinion 4. Unable to say
13. Who is the “main character” – the individual or group given the most focus in the article?
242 1. Elected officials/politicians 2. Students 3. Citizens generally 4. Academics 5. University administrators 6. Other 7. Unable to say
14. Considering the quotes used in the article, what point of view appears to be given the most emphasis? 1. The views of those opposed to independence 2. The views of those in favour of independence 3. Both viewpoints are given equal focus 4. The article is not about the Scottish independence campaign 5. Unable to say
15. Overall, does the article give the impression: 1. That a “Yes” vote would be negative for universities or higher education in Scotland 2. That a “Yes” vote would be positive for universities or higher education in Scotland. 3. That the effect of a “Yes” vote on universities or higher education is a question up for debate 4. That a “Yes” vote would be neither positive or negative for universities or higher education in Scotland 5. The article is not about the Scottish independence referendum 6. Unable to say
Connection to Scottish values and identity
16. Does the content of the article (main text, quotes, etc.) include any mention of equality, fairness, and/or social justice? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
17. If the article mentions any of these values, does the article present Scottish higher education policy as: 1. Promoting these values (the policy is more fair, encourages equality, etc.) 2. Compromises these values 3. There article does not present a connection between these values and Scottish higher education policy 4. Unable to say
18. Does the content of the article (main text, quotes, etc.) mention economic development or success? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
243 19. If the article mentions economic development or success, does the article present Scottish higher education policy as: 1. Promoting economic development and success 2. Compromising economic development and success 3. The article does not present a connection between economic development and success and Scottish higher education policy 4. Unable to say
20. Does the content of the article (main text, quotes, etc.) refer to the relative importance of Scotland’s higher education sector to the economy (e.g. “higher education is Scotland’s third largest economic sector”)? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
21. Does the article include some variation of the idea, “Scotland does disproportionately well in the UK-wide research funding system”? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
22. Does the article mention higher education policy in Wales, England, and/or Northern Ireland? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
23. Does the article contrast Scotland’s higher education policy (such as on tuition fees, financial aid, etc.) with policies in Wales, England, and/or Northern Ireland? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
24. If the article contrasts Scotland’s policies to those in Wales, England, or Northern Ireland, does it: 1. Compare Scotland’s policies favourably (Scottish policies are more just or more effective) 2. Compare Scotland’s policies unfavourably (they are inferior to arrangements elsewhere in the UK) 3. The article does not contrast policies 4. Unable to say
25. Does the article refer to policies governing the further education colleges? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unable to say
244 Appendix B - Interview Protocol
Preamble [to be to participant read before interview]:
• Thank you for agreeing to participate in this study. • The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between higher education policy and nationalism in the context of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. • This study seeks to understand whether, and to what extent, higher education policy is being used by the “Yes” and “No” sides of the referendum debate as part of their respective campaigns. This study is being conducted as part of my PhD studies at the University of Toronto. • I am interested in your thoughts on the distinctiveness of Scottish higher education; the connection between higher education and Scottish identity; and how you see the relationship between higher education policy and the referendum campaign. • The interview will last approximately 60 minutes. The interview will be recorded on a digital audio recorder, and the interviewer will take notes. You will not be recorded without your permission. • A paper transcript of the interview will be produced. The transcript will be shared with you prior to publication of the study. The intent of this sharing is to ensure that the transcript is an accurate reflection of the interview. • Please know that your responses will not be subject to any value judgments or evaluations. • Any information gathered from you during the interview will only be used for the purpose of addressing this study’s research question. Your responses will be published as part of my dissertation, and possibly in related academic articles. • All information gathered during this study will be kept in a secure location accessible only to me and my dissertation supervisor. • Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time. If you choose to withdraw, all of your research records – recordings, notes, and transcripts – will be eliminated from the study. After a withdrawal request is made, a 30-day grace period will be observed before your research records are destroyed. • You can decline to answer any question you wish during the interview. • In order to contextualize your responses for readers of the research study, I am asking that some personal information (name and position) be linked to your responses. However, you can request that your responses be kept anonymous • You are free to ask any questions you wish at any time during or after the interview about your involvement with this research. • You will be provided with an electronic copy of the research study upon completion.
Questions:
1. Do you think Scotland has a distinct tradition of higher education?
a. Follow-up: If yes, what makes the tradition unique? What are its defining characteristics?
245 2. In your view, is Scotland’s higher education system currently distinct from arrangements elsewhere in the UK?
3. What made, or currently makes, Scotland’s higher education system distinct?
4. Do you think higher education arrangements in Scotland reflect uniquely Scottish values?
a. Follow-up: If yes, what are the values reflected by the system?
5. Do you think Scottish identity contains particular ideas about higher education?
a. Follow-up: If yes, what are these ideas? How important do you think they are to people who live in Scotland?
6. Why do you think the Scottish Labour Party and Scottish National Party (SNP) have pursued higher education policies that diverge from policies elsewhere in the UK?
7. Do you think higher education policy is important to individuals who campaigned in favour of independence? Why or why not?
8. Do you think higher education policy is important to individuals who campaigned against independence? Why or why not?
9. Do you think that higher education (including issues around tuition fees, access, and economic development) was an issue that was effective in motivating voters during the referendum campaign?
10. If interview occurs before the referendum: What do you think will happen to higher education policy in Scotland if the people vote for independence? What will happen if the people vote against it?
11. If interview occurs after the referendum: What do you think will happen to higher education policy in Scotland now that people have voted for/against independence?
246 Appendix C - List of Interview Participants
Anonymous respondents (x3)
Margaret Arnott, Professor of Public Policy, University of the West of Scotland
Paul Cairney, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of Stirling
John Curtice, Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde & Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Social Research
Andrew Denholm, Education Correspondent, The Herald Scotland
Jim Gallacher, Emeritus Professor of Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University
Eve Hepburn, Senior Research Fellow in Politics, University of Edinburgh
Lucy Hunter Blackburn, former civil servant, Scottish Government
Charlie Jeffery, former Vice-Principal (Public Policy) at the University of Edinburgh, now President of the University of York
Michael Keating, Professor of Scottish Politics & Director, Centre on Constitutional Change, University of Aberdeen
David Lott, Deputy Director (Policy), Universities Scotland
Robin McAlpine, Director, the Common Weal
Liam McArthur, Member of Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrats
Michael Osborne, Professor & Chair, Adult & Lifelong Education, University of Glasgow
Timothy O’Shea, former Principal, University of Edinburgh (in office at time of interview)
Hugh Pennington, Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology, University of Aberdeen
Michael Russell, former Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, SNP
Ferdinand von Prondzynski, former Principal, Robert Gordon University (in office at time of interview)
Chris Whatley, Professor of Scottish History, University of Dundee
Robert Wright, Professor of Economics, University of Strathclyde
247 Appendix D - Thematic Nodes and Sub-Nodes used in Qualitative Data Analysis
The following nodes were used within NVivo 12 to code the key informant interviews:
1. Policy issues ⁃ West Lothian Question ⁃ Devolution ⁃ Merging and downsizing ⁃ Convergence ⁃ EU ⁃ Divergence ⁃ Sustainability ⁃ Funding ⁃ Governance ⁃ International Students ⁃ Student Financial Aid ⁃ Accessibility ⁃ Relationship to government ⁃ Further education colleges ⁃ Research funding ⁃ Tuition fees 2. Values and identity ⁃ Future orientation ⁃ Union ⁃ Academic attitudes ⁃ Political competition ⁃ Scottish identity ⁃ Social attitudes ⁃ Distinctiveness ⁃ Contrast with England 3. Referendum campaign ⁃ Comparison to Quebec ⁃ The Vow ⁃ Positive consequences ⁃ Academic freedom
248 ⁃ Negative consequences ⁃ Institutional Autonomy ⁃ New powers ⁃ Political motivation ⁃ After No ⁃ Political use of higher education ⁃ Role in the debate 4. System Characteristics ⁃ Quality ⁃ Role of institutions ⁃ Enrolment ⁃ Economic and social development ⁃ Policy community 5. Scottish Tradition ⁃ Democratic intellect ⁃ Lad O’Pairts ⁃ Myth ⁃ Curriculum ⁃ Access & Equity ⁃ Connection to community
249