Alex Salmond unveils tuition fees tribute as he resigns It emerged earlier this month that only 3.9 per cent of pupils in Scotland's most deprived communities managed to get three A grades in their Higher exams compared to 24.2 per cent in the wealthiest places. Mr Salmond unveiled the stone at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University, which agreed to host it, before giving his resignation statement to the Scottish Parliament. The tribute was made from Elgin sandstone and was inscribed with a 2011 statement in which he said: "The rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scottish students." He said: "The single biggest achievement by this Government has been the abolition of tuition fees. This one action has restored Scotland's long tradition of education being based on ability to learn - not the ability to pay. The stone was carved and designed by second-year stonemasonry apprentices from Historic Scotland's National Conservation Centre in Elgin, Moray. The agency said it cost only £80. But, when challenged about the evidence showing the policy had had little impact on the poor, Mr Salmond insisted the academics had ignored the "disincentive effect of debt" and the proportion of the poorest children going to university had increased from six per cent to nine per cent. He said: "As somebody who had a modest upbringing in a council scheme in Linlithgow, whose parents in an atmosphere of both free education and full grant, scrimped and saved to send four children to university, I know what a challenge and what would have happened with the imposition of large debt to people like myself." Edinburgh University found more people from poor backgrounds are entering English universities, despite the imposition of tuition fees, but Mr Salmond said the "disastrous" situation in England could only be properly assessed after five years. Liz Smith, Scottish Tory young people spokesman, abolishing tuition fees had "done nothing to widen access, as we know, and simply places more pressure on universities to bring in fee-paying students from elsewhere. That freezes out Scottish students from their own university - and that's hardly a legacy worth celebrating.