Morning:
13°c
Should I feel posh — and guilty — just because I went to university? This week it emerged that
universities have been told to ignore the new A* grade at A-level on application forms, to avoid bulking up numbers with pesky middle-class over-achievers. And according to new research, “universities don't like common people”: a survey shows that children brought up in certain affluent postcodes are four times more likely to go to a top university than those from less chi-chi areas.
All this conjures up visions of educational ghettos. Apparently children from the poorest postcodes with the highest proportion of ethnic minorities are 17 times more likely to go to the University of East London than the average UK child. At the other end of the scale, one per cent of the population live in the most affluent areas but command eight per cent of top university places. (This seems unimpressively low. Pull your socks up, rich people!)
What on earth is surprising about all this? Of course in many universities a lot of students will be from similar backgrounds. Class migration has slowed to a virtual halt in the past 20 years. In fact, as a child of the Seventies I'm probably one of the last remnants of it. Several generations ago my family were Eastern European immigrants. My grandparents were working class. My parents are lower middle class.
In the tradition of the John Cleese sketch, now I look down on them. I clambered up the ladder thanks to a scholarship to private school but also because I had what many underprivileged children lack — the gift of the gab. When I walked into my Cambridge interview and the tutor started spouting at me in French, I talked back to him as if we were old Parisian friends. He could have started the conversation with, “Do you mind if we speak French?” But that's not how it works in these places. A* grades are a red herring. What you need is the confidence to pass as any class.
This is unfair. But so is life. We can't start asking universities to make allowances for social problems or for glitches lower down the system. By the time students are 18 it's much too late for that. We already have a culture of have and have-nots. Instead of pointing it out the whole time, why not do something about it?
We need to encourage academic excellence from primary age. And we need to pump our state children full of the sense of entitlement that comes naturally to public-school kids. More schemes such as the charity Chance UK would make a big difference. It runs a mentorship scheme in Islington and Hackney and is desperate to find male mentors to spend a few hours every weekend with young boys with behavioural difficulties.
This is the sort of thing that will make a real difference to people's lives. Middle-class-bashing and fiddling university quotas will change nothing.
Sloane, a real winter warmer
Twenty shows were cancelled this week in the wake of the blizzard, including even the famously long-running Mousetrap.
I was insistent, however, that for me the show would go on — even if I had to walk in from Teddington. As it was, I only just caught the curtain up for Entertaining Mr Sloane at Trafalgar Studios. What a clever, hilarious and dark play it is. Joe Orton's 1964 dialogue feels wonderfully old-fashioned and yet so familiar and real. The performances were brave and shocking.
Can there be any more heart-warming sight on a wintry night than Imelda Staunton naked (or “in the rude”, as her character puts it) underneath a chiffon negligée?
My only frown came at the end when the four actors ran off after about five seconds of applause. Had something gone wrong? No. They, like all of us, were just worried about getting home.
Watch Posh get her claws out
Simon Cowell seems to have found a second career for himself: as a women's boxing promoter. Having despatched Sharon Osbourne, one of the only women aged over 40 on television, he wants young blood for his TV shows. First he pits poor little Kelly Brook as a judge on Britain's Got Talent up against man-eater Amanda Holden. Kelly didn't even make it past the first round. Now he's bringing in the heavyweights — Victoria Beckham versus Cheryl Cole for The X Factor.
This is not a man giving talented women a break. It is a man who wants to stage a manicured catfight. Who will have the last laugh, though? Brook got a series' pay for one day's work. So remember, Victoria, sometimes it pays to act vacuous. Do I feel La Beckham's greatest performance coming on?
Reader views (3)
When I started school on a council estate in the fifties, my parents (who both had to leave school at fourteen) were employed as a labourer (dad) and office cleaner (mum).
Classes were large (45 or more). However, my teachers were dedicated and kept excellent discipline and when I passed the 11+, my parents did everything they could to encourage me. I have a teaching qualification and a good Honours degree from London University. My son was awarded scholarships to public school and Cambridge. It's a matter of talent, hard work and aspiration.
- Pat S, London England
This is viscious nanny state social engineering at its veryn worst. If the government really wanted to increase University places at lower cost then they should copy the South African model of a first class distance learning University. Students often hold down jobs while they study by correspondence using public libraries special posted learning modules. UNISA degrees in South Africa are highly regarded because the examinations and course material are rigorous, the students truly motivated. Who needs to attend an expensive University to gets an Arts degree? Coupled with the use of modern technology like on line lectures, TV [all free to the government]. The cost of setting up this sort of University would be minimal compared with say Oxford or Cambridge? The fact is there is no "class war" kudos for doing something like this...gerrymandering admissions is so much more satisfying to the class warriors ...
- James Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove, NY, USA
Of course the pesky middle-class can always get around these government edicts by tailoring their personal statements. A couple of pandering lines regarding personal circumstances or social deprivation are impossible to check and make academic admissions officers feel all warm inside when they approve your application....or so I'm told.
- Mark, London
