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Universities ‘giving poorer state pupils a three-grade advantage’
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent5 Oct 2009
Leading universities have been accused of deliberately “dumbing down” under government pressure to take more working class students.
Head teachers claim some admissions tutors give pupils from failing schools a head start worth several grades over privately-educated candidates.
Andrew Grant, chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference of 250 independent schools, condemned the trend as ministers increase pressure on leading universities such as Oxford and Cambridge to take more students from poor backgrounds.
Speaking at the HMC annual conference in Liverpool, Mr Grant warned that a number of prestigious institutions have had their dependence on state funding “exploited to advance a political agenda”.
At Durham, for example, a “modifier” calculation is used to help tutors allocate places. Students applying from Shene School, a struggling state school in Richmond, are given a head start worth three extra A* grades at GCSE. Pupils from Eton are given no advantage.
Mr Grant said the system was “shocking” and left universities open to the accusation that they are trying to “compensate for the failure of (state) schools”.
“So enamoured are social engineers of unsuccess', they are determined to spread it,” he said.
“Some approaches to widening participation seem to imply a view that, to be intelligent and have been well educated among equally intelligent peers is a condition to be penalised.”
Ministers have introduced a new A* grade at A-level to help top universities identify the brightest candidates from thousands who score straight As.
Some have decided not to demand that candidates achieve A*s amid concerns that many more private school than state-educated pupils will score the new top grade.
Mr Grant also warned that a generation of students have been “conned” into going to university with the false promise that they will earn more as graduates.
Reader views (1)
The primary goal of university admissions is to select the best students for the course. There is evidence that students from independent schools under-perform at university relative to students with the same level of academic achievement from state schools [McManus et al., BMJ 2005;331:555-559]. While 70% of state school students entering university with A-level grades of BBB will achieve a first- or upper second-class degree, only 60% of independent school students entering with the same grades will achieve at this level. Put another way, an independent school student with BBB would achieve at the same level as a state school student with BCC/BBC.(These figures are out of date but I would assume the general principle still holds.) The difference disappears at very high levels of A-level achievement (AAA).
It seems likely (although I don't have direct evidence of this) that a student at an independent school will perfom better at A-level than a student of the same ability at a state school. This is presumably the independent schools' main selling point. What universities are interested in is the student's innate ability, not the extent to which it can be translated into exam results by schools of different quality.
While the methods used by universities to adjust for the independent school boost to A-level grades are certainly open to debate, it is fairly clear that some adjustment is necessary.
- Gordon Dent, Market Drayton, UK, 07/10/2009 11:26
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