The first thing that strikes me when I hear the conflicting debates about the apparent issues that Oxbridge has with state school admissions is that there seems to be a large amount of “shifting the blame” by the government.
Last week, Professor Amanda Roberts, Cambridge vice-chancellor, attacked ministers blaming Oxbridge’s admissions process as “non-state school friendly” by stating that it is not the universities’ responsibility to “help fix industry’s latest technological problems” and, rather surprisingly, I have found myself agreeing with her.
During my A-levels at a state school in West London, I experienced this issue of elitism at a very grass-roots level.
Following the receipt of GCSE results in early Summer, those from my year group continuing to study further were split into two groups - the elité and the rest. This elite group was delightfully named “The Gifted and Talented Scheme”, where the school streamlined the Oxbridge application process for a group of ten students. What was interesting about this group is that its members did not seem to be chosen solely for their intellectual ability, but by how they fit the Oxbridge stereotype. Through this scheme, the school basically convinced anyone who was “typically” state school (i.e. grew up in less than fortunate areas) that they were not good enough for the top universities, regardless of their intellectual ability.
The school did everything it could to dissuade students from applying independently and I for one did not even consider applying. Interestingly, no-one from ”The Gifted and Talented Scheme” were ultimately selected by Oxbridge, yet one person who applied independently did.
Why the school limited its students in this way baffles me. Was it so that the institution could use “success stories” from said scheme to better market itself to local well-off parents? Or was it because the school was just too wrapped up in the Oxbridge stereotypes? Or maybe it was just an attempt to boost the school’s reputation with Oxbridge itself, by supplying “only the best” students to the universities. Whatever it is, I believe these schools should not be limiting students’ aspirations, but be working towards them. State schools need to develop a more supportive and aspirational attitude towards their students.
So, in conclusion, I think that the government should start focusing its attention to the schools’ development schemes to ascertain where the Oxbridge class-divide issues stem from rather than attack what is essentially the by-product of the problem, especially since Harriet Harman apparently believes that class issues should now be Labour’s latest focus.
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