SCOTTISH universities have opposed plans for new legislation to force them to recruit more students from deprived backgrounds or face fines.
Universities Scotland, which represents university principals, said the Scottish Government proposals would not address long-standing problems of inequality in higher education.
However, Education Secretary Michael Russell said yesterday he intended to press ahead with the controversial plan.
In a statement to the Scottish Parliament, Mr Russell said the proposal had received widespread support and was "the route we will pursue".
The row follows the publication last September of Mr Russell's paper, Putting Learners At The Centre, which first suggested plans for the new legislation. The paper said universities should be placed under a statutory duty to seek out talented pupils from schools who routinely send few pupils to higher education. It added that universities that did not meet strict targets on widening access would be fined.
However, consultation documents on the Government's plans, published for the first time, reveal strong opposition from institutions.
The Universities Scotland submission states: "We believe further progress on widening access to university is a system-wide challenge in which universities have an important role, but which is fundamentally reliant on early-years and school-level action to ensure that learners from challenged backgrounds are able to realise their full potential.
"We want to make further progress, but do not believe that statutory targets for universities' widening access admissions are the answer."
A separate submission from St Andrews University added: "Whilst monitoring must be required to enable aims and objectives to be measured, we feel that statutory force may lead to bad practice."
However, Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, welcomed the minister's statement. He said: "The Scottish Government's announcement that it will introduce legislation to improve widening access is great news."
Meanwhile, the Scottish Government announced the creation of new apprenticeships from April next year.
Mr Russell said: "The content of these apprenticeships will be set out in response to employer demand ensuring that the apprenticeship programme continues to respond to emerging economic need."
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