Students should contribute towards their tuition fees, the Commission of Scottish Education has proposed.

The commission, set up by the broad-based Forum on Scottish Education following the 1993 National Commission on Education report, this week published its own report which vetoes the idea of entry levies on students and Labour Party proposals for loans to cover maintenance and tuition.

It warns that there should be no change in student contributions except as a result of a root and branch review of ÖйúAƬ funding.

There should be a moratorium on further cuts until the Dearing committee has finished its inquiry, it says.

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But Sir David Smith, former principal of Edinburgh University, now president of Wolfson College, Oxford, and one of the five commission members, said they had decided with great reluctance that student contributions were necessary to sustain the ÖйúAƬ system. Their preferred model was the Australian one, with students repaying a fixed percentage of tuition fees once their income reached a specified level.

"It does seem fair that there ought to be some sort of contribution, but we are very much against the current student loans system which has far too short a time to repay," he said.

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"There are growing categories of students who do not get tuition fees paid, including over 30 per cent of students who are part time."