The Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday April 08 2025 #Education

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Tuesday.

00:05My name is Dale Miller.

00:06I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by Education Correspondent Callum Ross.

00:12Callum continues to be a busy, busy time in the world of education.

00:18We'll get to the state of play with a couple of the country's best-known universities

00:23once we've talked through the front page of today's Scotsman.

00:26And we led on, well, some quotes from Snirky Starmer.

00:29He was calling for calm late yesterday evening, also warning that we've entered an era of instability,

00:39which he said would remain for some time to come.

00:43Now it came as Donald Trump threatened further tariff increase on China specifically,

00:49which would take the tariff percentage that China would be charged over 100%.

00:57China has pushed back and said effectively they're not giving in and they're not bowing to the additional pressure.

01:05So we have a looming trade war between really the world's two big economic powers here on our doorstep.

01:13Will there be a role for Snirky Starmer at all to play in negotiations?

01:17I think we'll learn a bit more about that over days and weeks to come.

01:23The Prime Minister is in front of the Liaison Committee later today,

01:27where we're expecting to be asked some questions about the state of the play with the UK economy

01:32and how he plans to handle Donald Trump and everything happening around the US tariff scheme.

01:39Also, a lovely story there on the front.

01:42A couple who are living down in North London currently, but they are from Scotland,

01:47and gave birth to a baby, the first case where one has been born after a womb transplant here in the UK.

01:56It's a real feel-good story and a lovely picture there of the family on the front page.

02:01Callum, universities, firstly Edinburgh.

02:08We had a piece written by Principal Peter Matheson that we ran across the weekend.

02:14He was talking about the dire challenge posed for the higher education sector, full stop,

02:20and how it could prove fatal.

02:22That was pretty strong language, but coming out the back of that weekend,

02:26we've got more action on the strike front involving Edinburgh Uni.

02:31Yes, absolutely.

02:32Of course, the background to the piece Sir Peter Matheson wrote for us is that Edinburgh University

02:38has been pursuing these big cuts, £140 million.

02:45There's also been a suggestion, and we've covered it a number of times,

02:50I think coming from the staff in the trade unions,

02:52that the scale of the cuts being proposed are not really necessary.

02:58That's too much, particularly given Edinburgh University is not in the deficit position at the moment

03:05that other universities are, such as Dundee.

03:10In his piece, Sir Peter was alluding to that when he called for everyone to try to pull together

03:18in the same direction.

03:21He also put it on the politicians a bit, didn't he?

03:24He was saying there needed to be a radical rewiring of the funding system in Scotland

03:31and also saying that the situation in Scotland was worse than England,

03:35which I thought was interesting.

03:39But yes, as you mentioned, just one day after Sir Peter called for everyone to pull in the same direction,

03:47we had the UCU union confirming that it was opening a ballot on industrial action at the university,

03:55including strike action.

03:58Unison as well, yesterday, revealing plans for industrial action ballots.

04:06So, you know, the story's not over there at all.

04:10And looking at another university that's in a worse situation than Edinburgh,

04:16which is Dundee, announcing that there was 700 people or positions specifically

04:23that were going, some 632 full-time equivalent positions in total.

04:29But there was an announcement from the Scottish government yesterday about what's going to happen

04:34with basically assessing and fixing the state of Dundee University moving forward.

04:40Yeah, I mean, plenty going on at Dundee University at the moment.

04:44You know, we've had resignation of most of the senior leadership there,

04:49including the former principal and co-chair.

04:52Like you say, a suggestion 700 jobs could go to plug a £35 million deficit.

04:58We've had strike action already.

05:00I wouldn't be surprised if there was more.

05:03£22 million of taxpayers' money is being provided to support.

05:12And we've got an independent investigation being launched into what went wrong.

05:16Now, today, the Scottish government is announcing that a task force is being launched

05:23to kind of help secure its future.

05:26It's going to be headed by Sir Alan Langlands, who's a former principal of Dundee Uni.

05:33He was principal from 2000 to 2009.

05:36He was also former chief exec of the NHS in England.

05:41He was vice-chancellor of Leeds University as well.

05:44So quite an impressive CV.

05:48This task force is also going to feature kind of representatives from the university,

05:53the city council, the government, local businesses,

05:56other kind of further and higher education institutions too.

06:02It's going to make some recommendations.

06:05I mean, I think I don't know this for sure,

06:09but my guess would be that this is kind of – there's been this sort of suggestion

06:14that SNP ministers aren't very happy with the idea that the university is going to cut 700 jobs.

06:20They're not really going to accept that.

06:23It's obviously a disaster for the area if that was to happen.

06:26I wouldn't be surprised if this task force just kind of makes some recommendations

06:31to try and avoid that.

06:34If you look at what Jenny Gilruth has said in announcing this task force,

06:38she kind of talks about finding credible solutions to protect the interests of students and staff

06:45and also kind of taking account of potential sources of funding and support,

06:51also not ruling out sort of further Scottish government funding too.

06:55So it'll be interesting to see what this task force comes back with.

07:00And we know Alan Langlands has a significant history throughout in higher education,

07:07in various sectors.

07:09So he will be going back to an area in the university he knows very well.

07:14So it will be interesting to see what impact his involvement

07:18and this penalty stopper has on rectifying the situation with Dundee University.

07:24You can read the stories that we've discussed there at scotsman.com.

07:28You can follow the education tab, which is in the navigation bar on the homepage,

07:34to get all the latest.

07:35And please follow us on all social media channels and pick up a copy of The Scotsman tomorrow

07:41where you'll hear the latest on what Sir Keith Starmer has to say about the US tariffs situation.

07:48Thanks to you, Kel.

07:49Thanks to everyone else for joining us.

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