Pay £28 000 to train as a nurse but hopefully earn too little to pay it back?
© Daily Record
One of Reporting Scotland’s favourite sources of ‘news’ is always a new report from the Fraser of Allander Nice Neoliberal Institute (FANNI). Their latest warns, oh my god, that health care will cost more as the Scottish population ages. Wait, is this new?
Anyhow, never mind the rest of Douglas Fraser’s report (Wait, another ‘Fraser’, is he a FANNI too?), but this bit takes the biscuit:
One of the politically challenging suggestions they put forward is for the introduction of student tuition fees.
‘Politically challenging’ is an interesting way of saying ‘daft’. Now you can see why FANNI and Douglas keep coming back to this. Free university tuition is clearly bad for the Loyalist parties and media. Along with a better-functioning NHS it might lead some to think the SNP are more capable than is desirable but suggesting this, with busy nurses in the background, is ill-judged even for them. See this from the Guardian in February 2018:
Nursing course applications fall for second year after student bursary scrapped. Applications to study nursing in England have fallen for a second year, dropping by a third since the Government removed bursaries in 2017 requiring nurses and midwives to pay £9,000 a year in fees. UCAS figures for the first wave of applicants hoping to start university courses in September 2018 show that the number of students wanting to study NHS nursing have again fallen sharply, by 13 per cent on last year.
So reintroducing tuition fees for nursing students in Scotland would result, a few years later, in greater numbers of unfilled vacancies. Oh, yes, I get it. Nursing vacancies are a good thing for Reporting Scotland, Douglas and FANNI. See my next post.
Talking-up Scotland 
Unbelievable, (BBC) – lets look for a SNP bad story, (Douglas Frazer) – oh thats a good idea lets create one, so in a couple of years time the headline will be more nursing places not being filled crisis in Scotlands NHS, SNP BAD. Is it just me or is this just crackers. I lose the will to live with the BBC sometimes. Its insanity, let make our Scottish NHS worse by introducing tuition feels for nurses, so they leave Uni with 50K debt to earn about 28K a year ? Shaking head thinking …. Wheres the paracetamol …
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It’s not a daft idea if your outlook is neo liberal and your concerned that the mega rich are denied money making scams. To hang with the nurses, doctors, NHS and of course patients. So long as opportunities are provided to create a debt that has to be paid back, preferably over 30 or 40 years.
Richard Murphy has a good video on his blog on how money is created worth a listen to.
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Watching the British-Irish Council press conference at lunchtime. Deputy PM, Taoiseach, FM of Wales, Chief Minister of the Isle of Man all got a full say, but—–as soon as Sturgeon started speaking the BBC cut to an interview with a Tory MP. Watched the rest on Sky.
The BBC is a disgraceful and bigoted broadcaster.
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I should add that I put in a complaint to the BBC, and expanded it to include the poor return Scotland gets from our licence fee, and the Anglo-centric nature of its programming. I don’t expect any joy, but……………… if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
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