New government policies to encourage part-time study in higher education are now taking effect. The good news for those who wish to study part-time is that after so many years as the Cinderellas of higher education, they are now firmly on the government’s agenda.
Formerly the treatment of full and part-time students was extremely uneven. Full-time students had their tuition fees paid on their behalf, irrespective of income, and were eligible for means-tested grants; while part-time students, however impoverished, received no assistance from the public purse with their fees.
Now, to prevent those on low incomes being excluded from participation in higher education, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) has introduced a fee waiver scheme for part-time study to take effect in the current session.
Dr Melvin Dalgarno, the Director of Continuing Education in the University of Aberdeen, explained how the scheme is assisting the University’s efforts to serve communities throughout the North and North-East of Scotland:
“There are no age restrictions on the scheme and it is helping a much wider group of students than the part-time students aiming at undergraduate degrees who attend classes here on the campus of the University in Old Aberdeen. The scheme is open to the 1,500 or so part-time students we have in the Continuing Education programmes we offer through video and audio-conferencing at Study Centres throughout the northern half of Scotland - from Benbecula and Stornoway in the West to Shetland in the North. It is a scheme which is not only opening up doors to University study for those who were previously excluded, but which is helping to maintain the vitality of remote and sparsely populated areas.”
Another bit of good news for the University of Aberdeen’s rapidly growing number of part-time students is the way the University, in line with government policy to promote part-time study, is using the part-time incentive premium in its SHEFC teaching grant to assist them. Universities in 1998/99 will receive a 10% incentive premium in their teaching grant for part-time students. The University of Aberdeen is using this additional income to cushion part-time students from the full effects of the new higher tuition fee charges.
For further information, please contact Dr Melvin Dalgarno on 01224 272373