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Class Conscious: is St Andrews still ensconced in an ivory tower?

In 2009, in one of her first interviews after taking over as principal of St Andrews University, Dr Louise Richardson spoke to The Herald about the importance of attracting more students from poorer backgrounds saying she was "utterly committed" to widening participation and pledging money to fund new bursaries from the university's wider campaign to raise £100 million to mark its 600th anniversary.

This "utter commitment" was somewhat tempered when I asked Ms Richardson how much the university intended to spend on new bursaries and how many more students from deprived backgrounds she wanted to attract. The gist of her answer was that setting targets was not the right way to proceed because I would simply return a year or so later to pass judgement on how well the university had fared against its aspirations. So much for accountability.

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Education

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