RICHARD Lochhead has defended the decision to allow students to return to universities, saying there were no “easy, risk free options”. 

The Scottish Government's Higher Education Minister told MSPs that there were now 759 students in Scotland who tested positive for coronavirus, and “many more” self-isolating.  

He warned that given "the incubation period of this virus and the testing that is taking place" there would likely be "more positive cases in the coming days." 

There was much anger last week when new emergency covid rules - brought in after a surge of cases on campus -  appeared to ban students from going home. 

Universities Scotland warned that breaches “would not be tolerated” while individal universities threatened some students with possible expulsion.

Over the weekend ministers moved to soften those restrictions, allowing students to return home in certain circumstances.

They also said students self-isolating could return home temporarily or permanently, as long as they avoided public transport and remained in isolation once they got there. 

In Holyrood today, Lochhead said it was a “heartbreaking” for first year students who “may have already missed out on once in a lifetime experiences such as final school exams and proms and traditional freshers weeks.” 

He told MSPs: “There were no easy risk free options, a record number of young people have worked hard for entry qualifications and have been stuck at home for months, and then they geared up for going off to university or college at the next stage of their lives. 

“Along with stakeholders, we decided that asking them to all stay at home and begin their courses online would have inflicted significant harm on them.”

He said the government had never been advised to keep students at home but were told that any return needed to be mitigated. 

Lochhead said the “key message” was that “students should remain living in their current student households and on campus, if they're able to do so.”

He added: “That will also ensure students can maintain social connections, access student services and face to face teaching where appropriate where it's taking place, and crucially, it will reduce the risk of large scale virus transmission and help keep us all safe.”

The minister said the government was “exploring the merits of some targeted surveillance, testing focused in individual institutions to understand the level of asymptomatic cases.”

Lochhead also said he was in talks with universities about the possibility of “staggering” end of term dates, in a bid to stop a mass exodus of students all at the same time. 

“We're six months into this pandemic and it's far from over,” he said. “In light of the outbreaks and cases among students we must redouble our efforts to control Covid 19. 

“Importantly we want students to have the option to return home safely for Christmas.

"We are working with the sector on the best approach, that includes looking at the public health measures, staggering term end dates and transport considerations. We will work with the UK Government and other administrations to bring as much consistency across these islands as possible.

Labour’s Iain Gray said the minister hadn’t gone far enough.

He said: “The truth is that the government failed to prepare a plan properly for students’ return, and then, panicking, rewrote and contradicted their own advice every few hours over the weekend, communicating randomly by press release and tweet.

“Universities were left to police the guidance, ever changing, to provide food and to refund rents."

He added: “Today’s frankly insipid statement will provide little consolation or hope, at least Ministers admitted that they got the SQA results wrong, so will the Minister admit that he got this wrong and apologise properly to Scotland’s students for that?

"Will he publish all the advice he says he followed,  the stakeholder discussions he says he had? And will he promise universities actual financial support now to allow them to support students and to refund rents?”