EIS: Education depends on learning true value of funding and resources

It is higher education, however, that is focussing minds at the EIS as it faces increasing hurdles, says David Belsey, Assistant Secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), which is the largest teachers’ and lecturers’ union in Scotland, with just over 1500 members, who are solely academics in the higher education sector.

These come mostly from the post 1992 higher education institutions (HEIs), primarily the newer universities and the specialist HEIs such as the SRUC and Glasgow School of Art. The EIS has a steadily growing membership in the higher education sector and it participates in national collective bargaining for the pay of UK university staff at the New Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (New JNCHES) in London. 

The largest constraint facing the higher education sector that Belsey refers to is that funding from the Scottish Government for Scottish university students has fallen and, Scottish students’ courses are being subsidised by the fees paid by international students. 

Scottish universities received direct public funding of around £900 million for teaching home undergraduate students in the academic year 2023–24 – around 19% less in real terms per student than in 2013–14 owing to the tuition fee being fixed in cash terms and the main teaching grant per student rising by less than inflation.

This means, he says, that universities do not have their full costs of teaching covered. For example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) talks about a cash cut of 6% in 2025 and about funding being cut in real terms for higher education from 2013.

Funding for the higher education system in Scotland has been cut to such an extent that the sector can only exist in its current form as long as large numbers of international students continue to study in Scotland – this is a risk. 

The Scottish higher education sector is vulnerable to any shocks that affect the numbers of international students coming here; pandemics, currency fluctuations, economies of other countries, UK visa restrictions and the growing competition for international students. 

At the moment, Belsey adds, international students pay a premium to study and attend Scottish universities, basically offsetting the lack of Scottish students. “The deficit between what the Scottish Government gives universities in Scotland and what it costs means that the system is overly reliant on international students who are currently paying for that shortfall.”

David Belsey, Assistant Secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)

The EIS welcomes the fact that Scottish students do not pay tuition fees. Also, the EIS welcomes the fact that higher education has widened participation and increased the enrolment of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.  

As the Scottish Government only funds a fixed number of university students every year, Universities in Scotland do not simply fill their courses with the students that merit a place on the basis of their applications – they fill their courses according to the number of places paid for by the Scottish Government. The concern is that falling Scottish Government funding or a sudden decrease in international student recruitment will lead to a reduction in the number of Scottish students in Scottish universities.

“So, there is no doubt that in Scotland, funding per head for higher education has fallen over the past 10 years with HEIs unable to cover all their costs from the funding the Scottish Government provides for teaching Scottish students. And to keep even these costs fixed, it caps the number of places in Scotland that are available,” he says. 

The lack of sufficient university funding to deliver the core of Scottish universities’ work – funding Scottish students – he believes is having serious consequences that threaten to undermine the country’s longstanding reputation for higher education, with the top four universities here founded before 1600.

“The Scottish Government needs to prioritise higher education and university level training for the good of the wider society within Scotland, as well as for the individuals concerned who must be able to compete in the knowledge-based economies in the advanced economies of the world,” says Belsey.

He highlights the £18 million savings target being sought by Robert Gordon University (RGU) with £10.5 million in staff savings. The EIS has said that staff members have built significant business links, bringing in funding from outside the university and that any loss of funding from these business links as well as its status in the wider community –may have an adverse effect on the financial stability of the university.

The RGU branch of the EIS University Lecturers’ Association (EIS-ULA) conducted a consultative ballot in response to these cutbacks that came out voting in favour of strike action in pursuit of protecting jobs and workloads at RGU, demonstrating the EIS’s commitment to defending its members at RGU. 

Across the board, the EIS passionately believes that further and higher education in Scotland provides a vast range of opportunities for students to grow as individuals, enabling them to acquire essential knowledge, skills and qualifications to improve their life chances – and that more investment will mean more students and more social mobility with better life chances.
For a healthy and vibrant higher education sector, research needs to be something that all lecturers should carry out. This, however, is being squeezed in some places – which may affect the attractiveness to international students.

Another corollary is the perception that in many of our universities there are not enough Scottish students at postgraduate level. This means, he explains, that any future cost cutting or reducing the cap will mean more Scottish postgrads will move elsewhere for further study, which again is a worrying prospect. If Scotland’s higher education sector does not keep up with its international competitors, then we risk seeing our students move away to study, and potentially not return.

“There also is a feeling that with less money invested there will be a negative impact on university lecturers, affecting their work and ability to carry out research,” says Belsey.

One of the signs of a sector facing financial challenges is its inability to maintain competitive pay rates. Pensions have been hit over the last 10 years and pay has not kept up with inflation for over a decade.

Meanwhile, the pay of university lecturers has fallen behind comparable professions: “Lecturers are finding that their pay has fallen in real terms,” he says. “People with PhDs are being better paid elsewhere.”

There is, he says, good reason to be proud of the university sector we have, which is a diverse one and with universities that are both highly ranked within the world and successfully deliver education to large numbers of Scottish students.

“We have the Scottish Funding Council and other bodies that have a coherent and logical structure to supporting higher education – and in a country of Scotland’s size there is an ability to build relationships across the sector. 

“We need though, the opening of universities to greater numbers, a fairer number of SAMT (Student Assessment of Modules and Teaching) students and greater vocational parity of esteem is important. That includes students getting access to the courses they want to study in university, rather than those the government or the university wants them to pursue.”

To achieve this, he believes the sector must overcome the ongoing salami-slicing of budgets that he says have now hit the bone. “The Scottish Government’s funding for higher education has been cut in real terms for several years and the impact on staff jobs, access to resources and the education of Scottish students threaten an impending crisis that may have far reaching consequences.  

“However, the EIS is committed to continue campaigning vigorously across these issues – and others – that are critically important to our members and to Scotland’s future,” 
he concludes. 
eis.org.uk

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How trade unions can make a difference in higher education

The SRUC was formed in 2012 with the merger of the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) and three FE colleges (Barony, Elmwood and Oatridge College) to create a Higher Education Institution (HEI) with a national footprint that delivered vocational, degree and post-graduate courses.   

The EIS was the largest of three recognised trade unions at the College and worked hard with the SRUC management to enable a successful merger. One of the issues was that the SAC had moved to a defined contribution pension scheme, and the EIS campaigned to ensure that the SRUC moved back to a defined benefit pension scheme as a default for SRUC staff. 

The EIS has been working hard in pursuit of fair pay and conditions at the SRUC

The harmonisation of pay and conditions at the four legacy institutions meant that different staff had different pay rates and hours at the SRUC. It also became apparent that the academic staff at the SRUC were paid below those in the rest of the higher education sector in Scotland. 

Progress by negotiation towards harmonisation within SRUC and equalisation with the rest of the sector had stalled at the SRUC by 2021. 

As a last resort, the EIS carried out a statutory ballot for strike action and obtained an industrial action mandate; support for industrial ‘action short of strike’ was extremely strong (93% of those voting) and support for strike action was also very strong (86%). 

Turnout in the ballot was 65%, well above the legal minimum turnout set by the UK government’s trade union law restrictions.

No further progress was made in negotiations and therefore the EIS members at the SRUC carried out a programme of strike action in pursuit of fair pay at the SRUC.

This was successful after four days of strike action. 

The complicated work of job evaluation and pay harmonisation is ongoing, but without EIS members taking matters into their own hands then the work would not have started at all.