George Foulkes makes the case for your vote...

I’m sitting in my office in the Scottish Parliament reading a copy of Student from 1970. The headline news was the sensational discovery that the University had hundreds of thousands of pounds invested in South African businesses, mostly mining companies, who were the worst perpetrators of the apartheid labour laws. These companies made huge profits at the expense of the human rights of thousands of black workers who were exploited mercilessly.

I was the SRC President here in 1963 and later President of the Scottish Union of Students – which predated NUS Scotland. By 1970, I was still serving the university as the Rector’s Assessor to Kenneth Allsop. Kenneth and I championed the campaign to rid the University of these investments which were indirectly propping up racial exploitation.

I’ve spent my whole working life promoting social justice and equality. I’ve been a Councillor, an MP and a Government Minister. I spent four years in the Department of International Development and was responsible for the huge investment in Gaza’s water and sewage system and I’ve visited Beirzit University which Edinburgh is twinned with. If you want to know more about my views on Israel and Gaza you can read my article in the Guardian which you can google or find on my website.

I’m uniquely placed in this election to be both a local, working rector and a rector with the power and influence to really act in the University’s best interests.

In the 1960s, just 1 in every 10 young people went to university. You simply had to be extremely academically gifted or rich. The future of the British Economy depended on manufacturing and heavy industry, car making, ship building and coal mining all drove the economy.

Five decades later, the future of our economy lies in the innovation and skills of the students, postgraduates and academics studying at world class institutions like Edinburgh. Renewable Energy, Life Sciences and Informatics are all industries which, through the power of ideas and innovation generated here in Edinburgh, Scotland can lead the world on.

The University is about to embark on a huge investment programme – £100 millions worth of infrastructure. Part of the money will be spent on a new centre for regenerative medicine. A world class centre of excellence where medical advances travel straight from the Petri-dish to the patient.

The power education has to shape the world has never been more important. It is why I’m standing for Rector of an institution that I’m proud to be a graduate of, and to have served in a number of ways for five decades.

I live in Bruntsfield and spend the best part of my working week in the Scottish Parliament where I serve as the MSP for Edinburgh and the Lothians.

I’ve also signed the Rector’s Charter which means I have pledged to be an impartial representative of all students and staff. One example is the issue of feedback.

Students have consistently told me that the quality of feedback they get isn’t good enough and staff are clear that when it comes to marking, the existing structures don’t support them enough.  To address this problem, we must ensure that the University places as high a value on teaching as it does research. That’s a difficult thing to achieve when so much of the

University’s income is reliant on research grants. What’s more, we must ensure that lecturers and tutors are paid properly not just to teach - but to mark as well.
Sadly, like most things in life, it all boils down to money and the University simply doesn’t have enough of it.

The funding settlement which the University received from the Scottish Government was poor, accentuating an already growing gap between Scottish and English higher education institutions.

The Scottish Government made significant hay out of the abolition of the graduate endowment. But that policy did nothing to alleviate student hardship or improve retention figures.

Just last week, HESA, the Higher Education Statistics Agency, released figures demonstrating that the number of students applying for University is falling in Scotland whilst it’s increasing in England and Wales.

In an increasingly worrying economic climate, there is a very clear and pressing danger that young people studying for their Highers today will decide that they simply cannot afford to go to university. That’s not just a tragedy for the potential of that individual, it could have a devastating impact on the economic future of our country – the United Kingdom.

That’s why my manifesto focuses on the issues of student hardship. I want to see a guaranteed minimum income of £7000 for the poorest. It’s a policy I’m currently pursuing in the Scottish Parliament and I’m the only candidate in this race who has the ability to actually deliver it.

I’m also championing the case for a course cost bursary. A one off bursary available to students at Edinburgh with extra costs for books, stethoscopes, lab coats, dissection kits, software and safety kits. Why should one student have less money to live off purely because of the nature of their course of study?

Having spent a lot of time at Kings Buildings and George Square over the past few weeks and months, I’ve picked up a real sense of worry within the university community. Nobody’s sure how deep this recession will be or quite how it will impact on the University. People are worried about cuts to budgets and services.

If there’s one thing above all which I hope to achieve as your Rector, it will be to help steer the University through this difficult economic period. My primary concern will be ensuring that that welfare and pastoral services, hardship funds and scholarships are all protected and that the University builds on its status as a beacon of excellence around the world.