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Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is an odd man to be attacking elitism. I mean, he's at home with the rich; he likes the company of the famous. But it's academic elitism he's got his sights on. Oxbridge elitism.
He has declared that there will have to be "remedial action" to oblige the top universities to take more working-class students.
He has backed admissions tutors who lower entry requirements for students from poorer backgrounds and has ordered new targets to be drawn up to oblige universities to do more to expand access.
The trouble with all this - apart from the fact that, this being Peter Mandelson, there's a nakedly political agenda behind it - is that it has already been tried.
Oxford and Cambridge have been browbeaten by the Government for a decade about the proportion of working-class students they admit.
In 2004, ministers established the Office for Fair Access to encourage universities to accept more disadvantaged candidates.
The implicit threat was that if they didn't shape up, their funding would be affected - which may be why Oxford and Cambridge universities are now trying to make themselves financially independent of the Government.
And these universities are already falling over themselves to attract all comers. Honest. A few years ago, a friend of mine was admissions tutor for a Cambridge college. He tried to interest state schools in his college.
He got about one answer for every 20 letters. The Oxbridge admissions process has been simplified. The Oxbridge entrance interviews have been adapted for candidates unfamiliar with it.
Or as one former head of a college acidly remarked, you try not to ask any questions that might actually require any element of knowledge to answer. Once, every Oxbridge applicant had to have Latin. Now, even to read classics, you don't have to know Latin and Greek.
But still, stubbornly, the proportion of Oxbridge students from state schools is 57 per cent, notwithstanding a Government target requiring Oxford to recruit 62 per cent of its students from state schools by 2011.
So can we assume that these universities are wilfully turning away bright, poor applicants out of sheer obtuseness, which requires someone with the acuity of Lord Mandelson (St Catherine's, Oxford, 1973-76) to remedy? Well no.
As one Cambridge director of studies told me, the chief reasons why some gifted state school applicants might not do as well as others are poor educational opportunities and a disadvantaged home background. "These are not," he says, "something we can do anything about. We do not do secondary education. We do not do remedial education. We do higher education. You can only do that with candidates who have benefited from suitable preparation at secondary level. If society leaves 18-year-olds in a position where they cannot benefit from an elite higher education, it is hard to see what we providers are supposed to do about it."
In other words, if Lord Mandelson wants more state school pupils to go to Oxford and Cambridge, he'd better do something about state schools.
Funny, there wasn't any need for the Office of Fair Access when we had grammars.
Meanwhile, he should leave Oxford and Cambridge, world-class institutions, alone.
Reader views (3)
What is the point of adjusting selection criteria for Oxbridge to allow those from "lesser" backgrounds greater access? The point is to improve those "lesser" backgrounds so they have the means to apply.
- Richard, Suffolk, 04/12/2009 00:02
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Too right Peter Mandelson knows perfectly well that poorly prepared students would sink at Oxford, Cambridge Harvard or any world class university. How dare he gamble with the reputation of our better niversities to put himself in the public eye! How soon can we finally get rid of this man?
- Spatel, london, 24/11/2009 19:09
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Although Labour have actually decimated our education system by dragging standards down to the lowest common denominator. I feel this attack on O&C is simply cynical pre-election hot-air and bluster from that slimy lizard Voldemort.
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 24/11/2009 10:29
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