OU Scotland urges part-time support

Financial support should be reinstated for part-time as well as full-time students, the Open University in Scotland has told the Cubie committee.

Peter Syme, director of the OU in Scotland, said: "We need to dispense with the false idea that higher education is something that happens only at the age of 18 and on a full-time basis. Support should be based on need not on the mode of study."

The OU in Scotland favours individual learning accounts and full access to loans. Part-timers represent 37 per cent of Scotland's higher education students.