Don’t you just love The Guardian? My grandparents get it delivered every day, and so reading it brings back childhood memories of left-wing socialism served up on a table of starched white tablecloths and marmalade spoons. Leaving aside the erratic morality of champagne socialists, let’s look to the real problem: class discrimination.
Did you know that private school kids are over-represented at universities? No? Gosh, comrade, you are not keeping up with the revolutionary news. These hotbeds of oppression are keeping out poor and deserving waifs.
‘But what is to be done?’ I hear you ask. Fear not, for there is an answer. We shall merely rig the examination system to help state school applicants. We propose that students who have studied at state schools will get their grades boosted when applying for entrance.
Cambridge University: based on merit and equality?
It doesn’t take a genius to see the problem with rigging the system: anyone who looks at magically rising GCSE exam results will know that the concept of an ‘objective’ exam quickly become irrelevant when the government intervene to make them easier. The entire point of doing an exam is to rank people against an objective standard, not to present a politically desirable outcome.
Equally, I imagine those lucky enough to go to private schools will be slightly ticked off. But I know that the people most upset about this are those people it is designed to help. I went to a state comprehensive until I was 16 (before getting an academic scholarship to a private school). I would loathe the idea that I was being admitted to university to meet a quota of state school students. I would want to know that I had got here on my merits, and could compete with everyone else as an equal. Comprehensive students don’t want to be patronised with special favors or quotas – we just want a better state education.
I am not arguing that universities should not help state school applicants to apply. Private school students have a wealth of cultural capital and (parental) aid with which to fully exploit the system. The access work that Cambridge and other universities do is an essential corrective to stop the cultural barriers to entrance becoming overwhelming and to balance the resources spent on the private school applicant. However, there is a crucial distinction between encouraging students to apply and artificially weighting their application.
Cambridge’s duty is to encourage all talented people to enter the competition, regardless of background. But this competition should be fair and equal: at the point of decision, admission should be based solely on talent.
If politicians and examiners are serious about improving access to elite universities, as they should be, the answer does not lie in fiddling with university entrance or creating artificial quotas. Instead, they should be brave and tackle the fundamental reasons for underperformance in schools.
Shit.
You posted this before any of the other comments appeared…
Why didn't anyone think of just making state schools better? This is dynamite.
Je crois que le mot juste en anglais est "brilliant" et pas "brillant".
You use the word 'talent' but I think a better way of thinking about this would be 'potential'. If you get the best education that money can buy, and manage to scrape 2 As and a B, you probably have far less potential than someone with the same grades who went to the local comp.
So what we need (I'm sorry if you think this is the guardian reader in me coming out) is a system which helps top universities assess potential, rather than simply the best grades. I like interviewing as this system, but some form of comparison to a school average is not a terrible idea either.
Ultimately it's impossible to accurately predict potential based on the results gained at a certain school. What if school A has really good Chemistry, Physics and Biology teachers but utterly crap English and History teachers? How will the system recognise that English and History C grades from that school are worth as much as its Science A grades?
It's far more complicated that "this school GOOOOD" and "this school BAAAAAD".
comrade!
Fair article and a good read.
Some sage, sensible and well-written opinions here, expressed in economic prose and unfussy language with the utmost sincerity. Great stuff!
excellent article. meritocracy is the only way forward in university admissions. whether that means that one year 99% of those accepted are from state schools, and the next 99% are from private schools, doesn't matter – as long as everybody was admitted on the basis of his/her intelligence. this is the only way in which cambridge can maintain its reputation as a serious academic institution.
The very basis of a meritrocracy (which I strongly support as well) is that everybody has equal opportunities (google it if you don't believe this), which in case of the British school system means that the harsh differences between state schools and private schools must be mildened. Thus, if state schools continue to fail in providing sufficient education, then there is no meritocracy. Because it just doesn't start at university level, it starts earlier.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15766375…
Sorry, did you just invent the word "mildened"?
Its in my dictionary.. is it not in yours?
Good one.
Congratulations on your academic scholarship.
You're tacky and I hate you.
This is something that upsets me too, but then I go and train with the U21s and forget about it because training is really intense
except you're in the 21As today! get off the tab and get to the match boy!
I think you're wrong on several counts:
-It makes sense to artificially boost state school grades when considering them for uni applications. Research has shown pupils from state schools achieve markedly higher results at university than a student with the same grades from private schools. I suppose the idea behind your suggestion that "admission should be based solely on talent" is that talent should be based solely on grades. Clearly that is a stupid assertion.
-I completely disagree with your claim that "the people most upset about this are those people it is designed to help". Don't try to claim everyone is opposed to this. If it benefits state school pupils they will support it.
-While this idea on its own may harm the chances of privately educated students you have to realise that even with this measure they would still massively benefit from attending a private school rather than a state school.
There has been extensive research into whether state school pupils with the same grades do better at university, and all the results I've seen have been at odds with your first claim. Source?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/03/s…
Slightly worried if you cite newspaper articles as references in your essays… in fact, I went looking for the study. The guardian SAYS the research was done by the National Foundation for Educational Research, but links to the Sutton Trust. I had a quick look at couldn't find it on the Sutton Trust… in other words, try harder and stop believing what you read in the guardian.
http://www.suttontrust.com/research/use-of-an-apt…
..try harder..
wheres your source?
[citation needed] to you too.
'If it benefits state school pupils they will support it.'
No. I would like to give state schoolers (and everyone else) a little more credit; just because something is in my short term interest, doesn't mean I support it.
C-. Fair argument and reasonably presented, if a little self-indulgent. Lacks even the slightest degree of creativity or originality. Dull. Would not read again.
He went to a state comp, so let's make it an A.
That would be seriously patronising.
Off the point but what does everyone think about the huge disparity between A Level offers and IB offers? Seems like the system makes it far harder for students following an alternative programme to A Levels, which is also something that needs addressing.
I've been at a talk given by my college's admissions tutor about this, where he showed some interesting graphs. Apparently, the university has (for many years) been correlating entrance offers to expected performance at tripos, and has a vast set of figures giving correlation coefficients between (for example) IB results and tripos results. As I understand it, the IB offers the university makes are based on the set of IB grades which correlate best with results around the 50th percentile at tripos. The same is true of A-level.
The disparity between A-level and IB offers is simply a result of past years' performance at tripos, given their A-level/IB grades.
How do they do this, given that they never give offers below 40 points? Surely they need some data to do such an analysis…
I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out.
perhaps the people they let in are clever?
I like your new picture Simon.
Yes, it is much better, isn't it?
In reality you can't calculate how 'weak' a school is. If you just give an advantage to every state school student you'll just loads of people from grammar schools. Then there are other things like the family background you'd have to take into account. This whole thing is stupid.
Anyway, it's not going to happen. It's just a paper written by one guy. All the article says is that it will be "circulated at the party conferences for debate this month."
hear, hear!
Amusing. As anyone who has seen me on stage will agree, my acting (and singing) is non existent. If I had 10 years of drama lessons, my parents *really* would have wasted their money.
Granted faggot, bigotted isn't far enough!
Bit of chippy inverse-snobbery never goes amiss…
Jog on Johnson!!
Yeeah Johnson you're shit! What a waster of your parents' money!!!
'Comprehensive students don’t want to be patronised with special favors'
Why is it that they are being 'patronised'? Would you say the same of the special favours afforded to private school students, that the gift of private school is patronizing?
On another note, if we are serious about meritocracy, private schools should be abolished. Their existence might be justified by some liberal notion of parents' free choice, but for what it's worth my opinion is that capitalist ideals allow for them since they provide the engineers, scientists, bankers and businessman that keep this country in the top few percent economically. Imagine if the millions being spent on private education was spent in the public sector, on EMA, for example.
Essentially I agree that state school kids' results shouldn't be artificially be boosted, but only because nobody has posited a practicable way of doing so.
"Imagine if the millions being spent on private education was spent in the public sector, on EMA, for example. "
Since it's a known fact that 70% of EMA money was spent on drugs, I expect we would all be much worse off and have no engineers, scientists, bankers or businessmen.
"[private schools] provide the engineers, scientists, bankers and businessman that keep this country in the top few percent economically"
What about all the state school people in this country who have been hugely successful?!
I hate state school kids. Glad they don't get the same opportunities. I use the Guardian as toilet paper.
If you use the guardian as toilet paper you must be at a state school kid. That is a FACT.
Twat.
A-levels are piss easy wherever you go – fact. I was the first person from my school to get into Oxbridge in 20 years (no exaggeration). I don't think there's all that much difference in the quality of teaching. The main difference between state comprehensives and private Oxbridge feeder schools is the attitudes of the students – I know that the vast majority (me included) didn't have a clue what studying was, and thought that if they manage to turn up to their lessons they were doing pretty well.
The difference is also illustrated in first year at Cambridge. The ones who came from the 'good' schools who are used to the concept of study practically live in the library, while those from state school who got in more on intelligence than hard work just prat around and still manage to do alright. Of course, this is a mere generalisation, there are plenty of smart private school students in Cambridge and plenty of hard-working state school ones, but I'd argue that distribution is disproportionate.
However, to get to the point, adjusting grades of state school students to allow them 'fairer' access to university is an absurd idea. It's simply an attempt to cure the symptom rather than the disease. It's a cheap and easy attempt at a solution when really you should tackle the attitudes that less fortunate students have towards education.
Something does need to be done though, because I know a lot of my friends from my old school are easily as intelligent as many of the people here, and now they're stuck at various ex-polytechnics wasting money and a pointless degree.
You appear to be using a foreign currency.
Otherwise, I totally agree with you.
'Left-wing socialism'? As opposed to right-wing socialism?
More grammar schools.
Kids get in to grammar schools because their parents know how to drill them for the entrance exams and because they know how to work the application system. Grammar schools don't help working class children at all.
true dat.
I am proof that this is not the case. I was never once practiced in the 11 plus exam. Sure the system isn't perfect, but it does allow people that might not otherwise be able to afford such an eduction (like my family) to get it and end up at a place like this. I am the first member of my family to go to university at all and without grammar schools that may well have not been the case. Saying that something doesnt help people because it isn't as effecive as it might be is simply flaming bull shit.
One person isn't proof. That's just an anecdote.
I am another person to which the same goes for actually. And I'm pretty sure there are others too. Some people's parents actually do understand the point of the 11+ exam and DON't tutor their children for it. I loved my grammar school and I very much doubt that I'd be here without it.
I would like to point out that I went to the same state comprehensive as the author of the article and I managed to get to Cambridge on my own merit and abilities. Private education is undeniably better, you pay more you get more, that's just life. But some state schools are better than others, if you take private education into account do you have to take into account badly run schools with poor teachers as well? Cambridge interviewers see the student's ability, not how much they've been taught or the quality of their teachers. It's about intellect and capacity, you can't teach that. I know heaps of private school kids who only just managed to get into a low grade uni.
i just ironically farted
you went to a private school to attain the grades that got you in (a levels) don't claim to represent those you don't. reveal your state school and I'll bet it's one of the better ones. These systems are not designed to help people like you so and so an article like this comes across very clearly as 'Fuck you, got mine'
the point is to admit on natural intelligence and hard work? Hence an AAA from the worst sixth form college in the UK with countless distractions in the class and outside and the lowest standards of teaching count for more than an A*AA from, say, Eton.
call me shirley
Good point, but somehow I don't think the writer had that distinction in mind.