Ellie Gomersall: Scottish Government needs to rethink its slashing of education budget

"Tommorow at 1pm, I’ll be joining students from across Scotland, as well as politicians, trade unionists and others, outside the Scottish Parliament to rally for our education and call for a reversal of the devastating cuts to tertiary education planned in the Scottish Budget for 2024-25..."

NUS Scotland President Ellie Gomersall's new column is out in The National today and can be read in full here.

As Ellie covers, tomorrow 20th Febraury NUS Scotland is holding the Rally for Our Education. Alongside student activists, trade unions, and politicians, we will be demanding loud and clear that the Scottish Government stop the planned cuts to higher and further education in the coming budget.

When it should be investing in our future, the Scottish Government is instituting cash terms cuts to the budget for higher and further education of over £100million.

This will be extremely damaging to students, to staff, and to our colleges and universities - whose funding has not kept up with inflation for years.

Earlier this month NUS Scotland released the Broke Students, Broken System report which sets out how students in Scotland are being let failed by a dysfunctional and underfunded tertiary education system, in which decision-making is influenced primarily by market forces rather than student experience, wellbeing, or outcomes. The Scottish Government’s short-sighted cuts can only make this worse.

The rally will be held outside the Scottish Parliament at 1pm and the message to the Scottish Government will be clear for them to hear, they must stop the cuts to our colleges and universities and save our education.

"Scotland’s education system is broken. Students know it. Staff know it. Unions know it. And tomorrow at 1pm, we’ll make sure the Scottish Parliament knows it too.

Significant funded reform is needed to the financial model to de-marketise the system and support it properly. In the meantime, the Scottish Government must stop the cuts to universities and colleges and centre education as a key priority for Scotland moving forward."