27/05/2016 Reporting Scotland

Helping more young people from disadvantaged areas get

to university is one of the Scottish government's top priorities.

But according to research today, Scots from disadvantaged areas

are four times less likely to go to university than those

That's a bigger gap than anywhere else in the UK.

Here's our education correspondent Jamie McIvor.

The number of Scots going to university is at a record high. More

youngsters from disadvantaged areas are starting to study for a degree.

But this is not the whole story. Youngsters for the more prosperous

parts of Scotland are four times more likely to go to university than

those from the deprived areas. That gap is the widest in the UK. Or

parts of the UK are still struggling with access, but also in Scotland,

we have not made the same progress as in England in getting more of our

poor people into university. The Scottish Government says closing the

gap is one of its biggest names, but this will take time. There has been

a historic problem with younger people from deprived backgrounds

getting to university in Scotland. We are seeing significant

improvements in that, and young people are now much more likely to

go to university under the actions of the SNP government, than when we

came to office in 2007. But there is much more to do on this subject.

There is one big funds between Scotland and the rest of the UK -

free choice in, a matter of principle which comes at a cost. --

free tuition. It means there is a rigid limit on the number of

university places open to Scots. So unless the number of places

continues to rise, helping the disadvantaged could cause others to

lose out. There is a priority which needs to be given to people from

disadvantaged backgrounds. That is a challenge we take up Martin Wheatley

to look at how to do that without displacing other deserving learners,

many of them from deserving backgrounds. One reason for the

difficulty is the role of colleges. More people aged under 30 in

Scotland have been higher education than in England. But look at this.

Here, about two in five went to college to first. In England, it is

roughly one in eight. These students at city of Glasgow College are

hoping to go on to do degrees. I'm hoping to do mechanical engineering

at Strathclyde university. I have chosen this route because I think it

is a good transition. There is no need to rush it. Going along the way

is better than going the shorter way. Today's report is reminder that

widening access is a complicated problem with no easy solutions.

The family of a teenage girl from North Lanarkshire who died

after falling ill during a PE lesson have praised school staff

14-year-old Kiera Beagle died in hospital after being airlifted

yesterday from Calderhead High School, in Shotts.

Kiera Beagle has been described as a popular and valued member of the

school community. Yesterday's afternoon during a PE lesson, she

felt the floor in games hall. School staff used the defibrillator machine

to administer several rounds of CPR in an attempt to resuscitate her.

She was then flown to hospital in Glasgow but she died a short time

later. The head teacher pupils have been paying their respects. It is a

very, very rare event. A sense of sadness. Kiera was a popular girl in

the school. Everybody knew her by her first name. She had a smile and

a wave for everybody. She would speak to me in the morning coming in

and waved to me on the way out at the end of the day. Kiera's

grandmother has paid tribute to the school and the emergency services

for, in her words, giving Kiera a fighting chance. An online

fundraising page has been set up and nearly ?2000 has been raised for

Kiera's family. It is a small community, only around 400 pupils,

but everybody knows each other and all day today they have been paying

their respects. Police Scotland say that Kiera's death is as of yet

unexplained, but a postmortem will be carried out.

Two people are being treated in hospital after an apparent

explosion at a flat in West Dunbartonshire.

Emergency services were called to Burn Street Lane in Bonhill

at shortly before 3 o'clock this afternoon.

One man is being treated for burns and another for smoke inhalation.

Hundreds of North Sea workers are to be balloted for industrial

Members of Unite, working for Wood Group on eight

Shell installations, will vote on whether to strike.

They claim they're facing a cut of up to 30%,

The union says the cuts are unjustified.

Wood Group says it is trying to safeguard the long-term

The jury in the Liam Fee trial have been sent home and told to return

on Monday to continue considering their verdict.

The toddler's mother, Rachel Fee, and her partner,

Nyomi Fee, deny murdering the two-year-old in March 2014.

They also deny abusing two other children.

With the jury now home for the weekend, this long-running trial at

the High Court in Livingston will be pushed into e gee week. Yesterday's,

the jury went out to consider their verdict at 10.40 this morning. Lord

Burns said the jury should consider the evidence dispassionately and

without emotion, although it was an emotional case. He said it was a

circumstantial case, and that any inferences from the evidence is the

jury should make should be reasonable and without speculation.

The couple are accused of eight charges, including neglecting and

murdering Liam and a categorical of abuse against two other boys over a

two-year period. The crown case is that the couple engaged in an

escalating pattern of cruelty towards Liam, which led to the young

boys dying of a blow to the abdomen so severe that it led to his heart

rupturing. The couple say it is another young child who was

responsible for the's death. The jury deliberated over the course of

the day before they were sent home. Nyomi turned to wave to her mother,

as Lord Burns adjourned the case for the weekend, telling the jury they

could reconvene on Monday at ten o'clock to continue with their

deliberations. Rachel and Nyomi Fee denied murdering Liam, they blame

his death on another child. They also deny the two abuse charges on

other children. A train driver has been arrested

for allegedly being intoxicated while on duty at Waverley

Station in Edinburgh. The 54-year-old ScotRail employee

was arrested just before He has since been removed

from duties. It has emerged that a plane

on approach to Glasgow Airport The incident happened two months ago

over Clydebank when the pilot of a Boeing 737 reported seeing

the drone about 100ft below him. The UK Airprox Board,

which deals with near-miss incidents, said the pilot didn't

have time to take avoiding action and there had been "a definite

risk of collision". Let's get the weather

outlook for the weekend. Good evening. Yes, a fair amount of

settled weather to come over the weekend. Tonight will be dry with a

fair amount of cloud around. I have some mist and fog for eastern areas.

fair amount of cloud around. I have The clearest skies tonight will be

across the north. Tomorrow morning, plenty of sunshine from the word go

across the north of Scotland. Elsewhere, brightening up gradually.

Around two o'clock in the afternoon we should begin to see some sunshine

developing across the south-west. A fair amount of cloud across the

Borders and Fife and Edinburgh and Tayside. Feeling quite chilly

towards eastern coastal areas. Temperatures peaking at around 20-21

Celsius, feeling very warm in the sunshine. Perhaps some heavy showers

being sparked off by the heat across the north-west Highlands. Across the

rest of the UK tomorrow afternoon, some showers across Northern Ireland

and heavy, thundery downpours across the southern counties of England and

Wales. Again, sparked off by the heat. Into the evening period,

across Scotland, jump up showers across the north-west. Otherwise a

dry, bright end to the day. On Sunday, highs of around 19-20. The

greatest risk of showers on Sunday will be across the Highlands Bank

Holiday Monday, still a degree of uncertainty regarding this area of

low pressure. At the moment it looks like it will affect the south-east.

For the most part, though, it is looking dry and bright. Rather grey

and cool towards eastern coastal areas with the best of the sunshine

in the west. From everyone on the late team

here in Glasgow and around