A golden opportunity

Imagine there is a vein of pure gold buried in rocks somewhere in Scotland that everyone knows about but nobody makes any attempt to exploit. Inconceivable? In this instance, we are talking about some of the most exceptionally talented and well-motivated young people in the country today. By any objective standards they have beaten overwhelming odds. Typically, they will have arrived here relatively recently with, at best, a sketchy knowledge of English. Not content to master our language at a speed that would put most of us to shame, they have gone on to work their way to the top of the class and emerged from school with an impressive set of certificates. But, while their contemporaries head off to university, they are faced with an academic brick wall. These are Scotland's young asylum seekers.