Sunday 15 June 2014

need to change university entrance requirements

The Guardian tells us of yet another report indicating how students from comprehensive schools "outperform their more expensively  educated peers at university". (State school pupils outperform private peers at university,07/06/14) It stands to reason, therefore, that the so-called top universities should "lower their entry requirements" for pupils from most state schools, as clearly, many talented pupils are not being given the opportunity to maximise their potential. As the editorial  rightly says, this is a "practical suggestion" for an education secretary who "has talked about social mobility" and "raising university standards".Sadly, Mr Gove`s examination reforms, his ending of the Education Maintenance Allowance, trebling of tuition fees and failure to interfere in university recruitment all suggest an increase in social mobility is not on his agenda. If it was, Oxbridge and the other Russell group universities would only be allowed to take 7% of their students from the private sector, in line with national figures.
    The report`s conclusion also de-bunks the notion held by Gove and also, sadly, by the shadow education secretary, that state educated pupils have no "character and resilience". As if they would know! Do they actually believe that that these successful, hard-working university students, during their time at state secondaries, did not have to cope with setbacks and problems, many actually caused by government policies and cuts? How much "character and resilience" do they have to show to convince privately educated politicians? Raheem Sterling by the way, reacting to his sending-off with an "electric" and "unstoppable" performance in the following training session, must have been privately-educated, and all records stating otherwise must simply be mistaken! 
 

 

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