AN 87-year-old pensioner who left school at 14 “with nothing” is Scotland’s oldest university student after enrolling at university – for the eighth time.
Alex Stewart, returned to classes at Dundee University last week where he is studying for a liberal arts degree.
Mr Stewart, who lives in Dundee, has already earned degrees in sociology, philosophy and town and regional planning from Dundee, Abertay and St Andrew universities.
He is the university’s oldest student and the one with the most degrees.
Born in the days of the jute industry, Mr Stewart's parents told him he had to leave school at 14 to get a job.
He previously said: "Both my parents worked hard and my father said to me, 'You've got a good report son but you'll have to leave school when you are 14 and go get a job'.
“These were the days when parents would have to pay for the academies and so that was the end of me learning anything.
“I left school with nothing. I went into the world of work in the jute industry, as did most of my generation."
But that was not the end of the road for the pensioner who returned to education at the age of 65.
He enrolled in the University’s New Opportunities Course through Dundee College in 1995 and went on to study for his multiple degrees.
Mr Stewart spent his military service as a radio operator in the RAF before working for most of his career as a surveyor across the UK.
At 65 he decided to follow in his son’s footsteps and seized the opportunity to return to education after seeing them complete university.
His son Simon studied geology, while his younger sons Jonathan and Dominic graduated in medicine and law respectively. All three boys graduated from Dundee University.
Just last year, Mr Stewart was awarded a Certificate in Higher Education at the same university.
He is now pursuing further study in liberal arts.
Speaking last year, he said: "Studying today is about the virtue of learning.
"What I would say to the younger folk, when picking a degree, is think about what will be useful for society in a few years’ time.
"But I would also tell those returning to education to study what they are passionate about.”
"I never thought about further education until I retired from work when I was 65."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel