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Debt sale subsidy payments by the Scottish Executive to 2003-04 in respect of student loans total £62,527,000. However, the cost of these payments is offset in the Executive’s balance sheet against the debt sale subsidy provision, created when the loans were sold, and thus are a nil cost annually.

Student loans were accounted for on a cash basis until 2000-01. From 2001-02 they were accounted for entirely on a resource accounting basis. To facilitate the change, both cash and resource accounts were published in 1999-2000 and 2000-01.

In the year ended 31 March 2000, student loans were accounted on the basis of the Scottish Executive share of the Student Loan Company loan book, giving a balance of £458.554 million. In the year ended 31 March 2001 the Scottish Executive’s share of these loans was accounted for on the basis of the loans balances of students domiciled in Scotland. This meant that the opening balance of student loans was recalculated to be £420.880 million.

Student loans have been an integral part of an affordable student funding system since 1990. The most recent information from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and the Scottish Further Education Council, gives details over the five year period from 1998-99 until 2002-03. This shows that the number of students from ethnic minority backgrounds who have entered higher education in this period has increased and continues to exceed the proportion of the general population who are from an ethnic minority background.

The Scottish Executive intend to publish the findings from the Scottish Student Income and Expenditure Survey in summer 2005.

The information requested is given in table 8 on page 56 of the Student Loans Company Ltd’s annual report for 2002-03 published by the Student Loans Companyin November 2003, copies of which are available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 31394).

Education policy is set by ministers. We work with others, local authorities, teachers organisations and many others, including philanthropic foundations who are committed to improving the quality of Scottish education, to deliver these policies. The precise contribution of other bodies varies according to each circumstance, but philanthropic foundations have already shown they can bring new ideas as well as financial resources, which help achieve educational improvements.

Eligibility is restricted because the number of eligible teachers is controlled by the Scottish  Higher Education Funding Council to match teacher workforce requirements.

It would be possible to extend eligibility to include all teacher education institutions elsewhere in the UK, but we would not be able to limit eligibility to individual institutions. We would therefore be opening ourselves to an indeterminate number of applications, for the most part without teaching vacancies being available.

We regularly review eligibility for the induction scheme, but it is extremely unlikely it will ever be extended to guarantee places to individuals graduating from elsewhere in the UK.

Discussions are on-going with the Home Office to explore possibilities open to Scotland within the work permit system and wider UK immigration policy. Areas of mutual interest include implementation of the Fresh Talent: Scotland Scheme. Under the scheme, international students from outside the European Economic Area who graduate from Scottish institutions will be allowed to live and work in Scotland for up to two years after graduation. We are also discussing ways in which we can promote Fresh Talent through UK schemes, such as the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme, which aim to assist those who wish to live and work in the UK. In addition, we are considering with Work Permits UK ways in which we can better promote the work permit system to Scottish employers.

The Fresh Talent Scotland Scheme, which will allow non European Economic Area graduates from Scottish higher education institutions to remain and work in Scotland for up to two years, comes into effect from summer 2005. It is not possible to determine how many students from Asia will benefit from the scheme at this time. 

Scotland has been successful in attracting international students for a number of years. According to the most recent figures available, there were 7,486 students from Asia studying at Scottish higher education institutions in 2002-03. It is estimated that around 390 of those students were studying for the MBA qualification. The Fresh Talent initiative was launched in February 2004 and it is not possible to report on its impacts in relation to student recruitment atthis stage.