NUS Scotland’s ‘Broke Students, Broken System’ report launch
NUS Scotland have launched a new report – Broke Students, Broken System.
The report looks at five key areas: the realities of Scotland’s funding model, student finance, housing, transport and mental health, and the need to build a new education system that works for students.
It highlights a number of challenges within the student mental health sector including the impact of the cost of living crisis, waiting lists for support services and lack of long term funding for student mental health.
The report is the first of three in NUS Scotland’s Broken System series. The following two reports later in the year will outline international best practice and policy ideas from countries comparable to Scotland, and then present a roadmap towards a new, better system – built by Scotland’s students from the ground up.
Commenting, NUS Scotland President Ellie Gomersall said:
“Our universities and colleges, hit with years’ worth of cumulative real terms cuts, are facing even greater cuts this year. Students still don’t have enough money in our pockets, leaving large numbers stuck in a cycle of poverty.
While NUS Scotland has successfully fought for free undergraduate tuition for Scottish-domiciled students, and we won significant increases to student finance, the current system is still failing students.
25 years on from the reestablishment of the Scottish Parliament, we must now embrace bold, radical solutions for an education system that is genuinely free, accessible, lifelong, and sustainable.
Education is one of the best ways of tackling poverty and inequality – but in order to succeed, our focus should be on building an education system that works for people, not profit. This report is the beginning of that.
This is not the time for fiddling around the edges, but for transformation – and the student movement is determined to lead the way.”
