‘They’ appear several times in BBC Scotland’s headline story:
What are we paying for? I could do everything I am doing from my house, so why have they sent us here?
I do think they are just trying to make money off us being in halls and they knew this was inevitably going to happen.
Reading through this BBC report, the Scottish Government, the Higher Education Minister and the First Minister all get a mention. Are they the ‘they?’
One mum, not necessarily related to any BBC Scotland staff member or representative of the opposition parties, knows fine who is to blame:
Helen Kirkpatrick’s daughter is a second year student at Glasgow’s Strathclyde University and is staying in private halls. She said: “After going back there she has found out that all classes will be online for the first semester. “She’s signed an agreement and paid a lot of money to stay there and what for? Now she is essentially imprisoned? “She could have studied at home – I think the Scottish government could have handled this a lot better.“
Does the Scottish Government decide whether or not courses can be run at a distance or require face-to-face classes?
I was in Higher Education for 40 years. I can’t remember a single example of a government minister having anything at all to say to us except on big issues like funding or inclusion.
I remember trying to report the waste of public finances by my own university and the Minister, Angela Constance, responding that she could do nothing about that because universities are autonomous institutions that can do what they like if their board of governors is agreeable.
Here’s a wild thought. Could ‘they’ be the University principals?
Where is Glasgow University’s principal, Anton Muscatelli? Could he have answered Mrs Kilpatrick’s question? Are they, the students, on-campus just to pay rent? Is it corporate greed? What was his bonus last year.
And, BBC Scotland, why not ask him?
They (BBC) have not learned from the private care homes saga where they tried to pin the deaths on the Scottish Government
Universities are like most Care Homes,businesses whose primary function is to make money for their stakeholders (used to be to educate our young people when I was a boy).
If the SG had insisted that all tertiary education be conducted online,HM press would have been trying to crucify them for bankrupting our educational institutions blah blah blah and no doubt they would have been the subject of litigation by the industry for loss of earnings.
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Indeed and as I pointed out in another article, the Scottish government would have crucified if they’d even mentioned not reopening Universities, for denying the kids an education, and ruining their lives forever. The calls for the FM and others to ‘RESIGN’ would have been totally defeaning, the church bells would be ringing in all the shires, to tell us how evil the nasty nats are. Bong….bong….bong….
If you find Aton Muscatelli do let us all know Prof.
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Oh yeah, remember polytechnics? It’s a good name, poly,tech.nic…more 2020 than 1980s
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I think ScotGov have done well by extending the coronavirus (Scotland) 2020 act to march 2021.
It means that students have the option to give 28 days notice to bring their ‘whole year’ rental agreements to a close for ‘coronavirus reasons’
Of course they could not really have tussled with the university money machine as the English unis are doing exactly as the Scottish ones.
It is underhand or unfortunate of the unis to have enticed students into accommodation with a ‘blended learning’ sell and then taken that away from them though.
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With regards the ABC
this may be described as
Not scraping the bottom of their barrel
But on of
Licking the sides of it
And let us hope all they get are skelves
Upon their rabbit toungues
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I’ve a suggestion as to the first question the media should ask.
Why did Scottish Universities have the UK gov Covid guidelines on their web pages instead of those by the Scottish Government.
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Golfnut
You ask why Scottish Universities had
UK.Gov guidelines
Answer
1 Stupidity
Or
2. Ignorantly and in every sense of the word
Or
If not 1or 2 above then
3.Treachery
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For the same reason that, for many years, Scottish Universities did not have courses on Scottish History or Scottish Literature or that recruitment officers favoured applicants with A Levels over ones with Higher Grades – because many of the high hied yins in the Universities had been educated themselves in the English schools system (disproportionately, the private sector) and had been recruited by, and they themselves recruited, people with similar backgrounds to themselves. They also send their own children mainly to the private sector and, for many years these schools, followed English Examination Board syllabuses.
I can recall being told by a rather pompous and overbearing admissions tutor at a Scottish University that ‘we won’t be accepting any of these strange Advanced Higher things’.
So, for such people, Westminster is the government.
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They didn’t. Links on the Uni web sites to coronavirus information/guidelines were and are to the Scottish Government Covid-19 web pages and to NHS Inform pages relating to Scotland.
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Golf nut
The links on Scottish uni web sites were and are to Scottish Government web pages on Covid-19.
I am getting fed up with people peddling this fake news.
I checked out the websites of various Scottish unis when this claim first appeared on this site a few weeks back and all linked to the relevant pages on the Scottish Government’s web site
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Correct. I tried a few too and found the same.
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