Jim Wallace, the outgoing enterprise and lifelong learning minister, has written to funding chiefs urging them to enforce a policy of “increasing participation in higher education from publicly funded schools”.
Another letter to the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) said ministers wanted “to see real improvement in the proportions of students from economically disadvantaged groups”.
Increasing the percentage of pupils from state schools at universities, and preferential treatment for deprived students who have studied at further education colleges and want to go onto university, are among the stated aims. SHEFC is expected to endorse the executive’s approach in a forthcoming report.
The policy will penalise pupils from private schools because the executive has confirmed that it has no plans to increase the total number of university places available.
Universities will be expected to turn away privately educated pupils and favour their state-educated counterparts.
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Asked if it would be more difficult for privately educated or better-off students to gain a university place, a Scottish executive spokesman said: “Yes, that is a possibility. These are the kinds of issues we will be discussing with SHEFC.”
The intervention, which could give universities financial incentives to recruit students from poorer backgrounds, is designed to curb what ministers regard as elitism in higher education. However, it is likely to provoke claims that universities are being forced to engage in social engineering.
Scotland’s 55 independent secondary schools already believe ministers are waging a class war against them. They face losing their charitable status unless they can prove that they provide a public benefit.
“We support the intention that access to higher education is as wide as possible across the spectrum of society — but not in such a way that would end up discriminating against one sector,” said Alistair Hector, the head of George Heriot’s school in Edinburgh.
Johann Lamont, the deputy communities minister who pushed through the new charities rules, has described private schools as “places of privilege”. Frank McAveety, a former Labour minister, said he would prefer “Kylies, Jordans, Chardonnays and Jasons” to be on the school register to “Torquils, Mirandas and Farquhars”. His comments led Michael Spens, the head of Fettes college, Tony Blair’s old school, to accuse MSPs of indulging in “the politics of envy”.
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Fiona Hyslop, the SNP’s shadow education minister, said the executive measures were unambitious and “lag far behind what is being done by our European counterparts”.
The executive defended its position. “It is not anticipated that there will be any increase in the number of funded higher education places at Scottish institutions, but we will work with the sector to make best use of existing capacity,” said a spokesman.
Positive discrimination has long been a reality at English universities. In 2003 The Sunday Times revealed that two leading universities had introduced secret quotas to cut the number of privately educated students on some of their most popular courses.
Bristol and Durham set targets for departments including English, history and law that would help reduce their independent school intake by up to a quarter, following pressure from ministers to widen access for state pupils. The move enraged independent schools.
Last month it emerged that a list compiled by King’s College London had identified high- performing state schools where pupils faced being denied places to make way for those from low-achieving state schools.