PQA will not solve university admissions problems

As Peter Lazenby rightly says, the current "university admissions system puts working class students at a disadvantage". As well as the possible introduction of post-qualification application (PQA), there is the matter of the actual qualification; after all the fuss of Gove`s assessment reforms, and the provision of highly regulated A-levels containing more "rigour", and described by Ofqual as "national qualifications based on content set by the government", it is ridiculous that universities should accept, as academic entrance qualifications any other exams! The lightly-regulated Pre-U exams, set and marked by teachers in private schools, mostly for their pupils give far too much advantage to entrants from the private sector. Yet Oxbridge and others are allowed to get away with such bias, allowing hundreds of undergraduates to study in their colleges every year without A-levels. This year saw massive A-level grade inflation of 4.7% increase in A*/A grades in independent schools, but we saw no media outrage, or even clarification of whether this included Pre-U results! It seems ridiculous that in the academic year 2017-18, there were 125 Oxbridge undergraduates with three or more Pre-U qualifications but no A-levels, and 1075 students with a combination of three or more A-level and Pre-U qualifications. The phasing out of Pre-U exams is to be welcomed , but it still means that for another few years, the privileged will continue to have their university places guaranteed, and their monopoly of "educational advantage" continued. Universities should accept the so-called "privilege cap", which would limit the proportion of students accepted from private schools at the national figure of 7%. This would force universities into adopting contextual admissions policies, and make more room for pupils from the underfunded schools, from underprivileged families and from economically deprived areas, whose potential remains largely untapped. Oxbridge`s insistence on interviews hardly helps matters! Could there be a more effective deterrent to getting able pupils from working class backgrounds to apply to Oxbridge than the thought of an hour-long grilling by academics? Test their ability after three years of their education, not after eighteen years of being disadvantaged! The introduction of PQA might help, but so many barriers would still remain!