There has been a sharp spike in Covid infections among
teenagers in Scotland? Another word for these teenagers here is students. These
students are now being allowed to go home. So, we might expect a sharp rise in infections
when they get there. Is the Scottish Government deliberately spreading Covid?
SNP rules imprisoning students lasted about two days.
There is a pattern here. The SNP had a plan on exam results, but in the face of
mass objections from pupils and parents marks were increased. The reward for
your increased mark turned out to be imprisonment.
Now students will be able to return home and study
there. The rules have been modified to allow anyone to return home for wellbeing
reasons. The SNP have provided students with a set of loopholes which means any
student who wants to go home would have to try very hard indeed to be punished
for doing so. This means, of course, that no one will be punished. The doors of
the halls of residence prisons have been flung open. The SNP have given every
student “Freeeeeedom” and will expect them all to vote SNP next time there is
an election.
The result is that apart from a few poor souls from
overseas who will remain stuck in now empty halls of residence pretty much
anyone who can will get out as soon as possible.
The Grand old Duchess of Bute
She had 200,000 students
She marched them up to the top of the Halls
And she marched them home again.
We are back then to where we should have been in the first
place. From March to the summer teaching at university was online, most
buildings were shut and there was very limited access to laboratories and
libraries. But those who really wanted to learn could do so pretty much as well
as they could before.
There are subjects that require access to equipment some
require experiments and the cutting up of dead animals and people. But all of
these subjects have a theoretical aspect that can be taught from books. It
would have been perfectly possible to teach the theoretical aspect until Covid
is finished. There was therefore no reason at all for the vast majority of
students to return to campus.
Why didn’t the SNP decide over the summer that universities
in Scotland would continue as they had from March to the summer. After all the
SNP has the power to tell us not to go out of our houses. They had the power to
do this.
There is a tendency among SNP supporters to say, “What
about England?” They say look England is making the same mistake as us. But
this doesn’t absolve the SNP of responsibility. If two burglars are caught, you
don’t get to say, “But he is from England.” Sturgeon was willing on numerous occasions
to give different advice to Scots and Scotland had different Covid policies on
all sorts of things. So, the decision that students should return to campus was
Sturgeon’s and hers alone.
I suspect that the SNP were concerned about rented accommodation
in the Scottish university cities remaining empty. Universities would have argued
that students should return to campus because otherwise halls of residence would
not have generated rents.
But lots of businesses in Scotland have suffered because
of Covid restrictions, why should universities be exempt? Perhaps the answer
lies in the fact that the SNP has made a great deal of political capital over
the years from the fact that universities are “free” for Scots. Perhaps
Sturgeon was scared that if campuses were closed those students who pay fees
(English, Welsh, Northern Irish and overseas students) wouldn’t come at all,
which would rather stuff her ability to keep Scottish students fee free.
The main reason however for SNP incompetence on devolved
issues like health and education is that neither the SNP nor its supporters
care about these issues. They focus instead almost entirely on a reserved issue
that is completely outwith the remit of the Scottish Government.
Constitutional change, i.e. independence is not
devolved. It is not (contrary to Keir Starmer), the business of the Scottish
Parliament, yet it is the only thing that the SNP thinks about. This is why it
makes such frequent mistakes on education (exams, universities), law and order
(Humza’s law) and Health (care home deaths, and now more Covid cases in Scotland
now than ever before). If you elect a Government solely because of its views on
the constitution don’t be surprised that it turns out to be incompetent on
everything else.
Students have wasted money on accommodation on campus
that turned out to be falsely advertised. Instead of the best years of your
life, you got porridge.
They will now return home, and now that university is
only online many will feel that they would prefer not to bother. Anyone who is
primarily concerned with learning need not be disappointed. You can learn just
as well online. But if you are primarily interested in living away from home,
meeting new people and having a great social life, then sorry, you are not
going to get that.
This is why Sturgeon took the decision to open campuses
in Scotland. Higher education has expanded way beyond those students who
primarily want to learn. Campus life is the attraction without which students
won’t study at all.
We are now going to test the motivation of students.
If you really want to learn then you can, but to be brutally honest if you want
to leave home and have fun, you might be better off getting a job if you can
find one. It will provide you with the same life lessons as university and you might
even make a profit.
The SNP’s decision to open campuses has imprisoned
students unjustly although briefly it has cost them money and made them pay university
fees for courses they perhaps now will not want to study from home. It has also
spread Covid in Scottish university towns and will spread it elsewhere as
students make their way home. How many grannies will die unnecessarily as a
result?
The pity of it is that these same students will blame
Boris Johnson who had nothing to do with the decision and adore Nicola Sturgeon
whose progressiveness extended to jailing them. Those who are incapable of
learning simple lessons are unlikely to benefit from higher education.
Scotland needs to be begin learning lessons too or else
we can continue with SNP misrule.
