Elite Universities
Moral Maze
BBC
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2017
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Newly-released data obtained by the Labour MP David Lammy shows the dominance of the top two social classes at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Four-fifths of the students accepted between 2010 and 2015 were the offspring of barristers, doctors and chief executives - and the numbers are edging upwards. More offers were made to pupils in the London commuter-belt than in the whole of northern England. Most prime ministers, most judges and a large proportion of those who work in the media went to Oxbridge. It's a route to the top, but according to David Lammy it represents and perpetuates a ruling elite which is "fatally out of touch with the people it purports to serve." Some argue that the admissions bar should be lowered for socially-disadvantaged candidates - that a 'B' from a struggling comprehensive is worth an 'A' from Eton. Some of the top US colleges give weight to an applicant's class to ensure that talented students who have succeeded against the odds are recognised. Others argue that admissions should be based on academic considerations alone, and that the greatest barrier to disadvantaged students is not the entrance criteria of elite universities but the schools that have let them down. For many, social mobility is an intrinsic moral good; they want everyone to achieve their potential regardless of their postcode and they think universities should work towards that. It is, they say, part of their job. Others say their job is simply to be academically outstanding, and if universities mirror social and racial inequalities, that's just a symptom of a bigger problem. Witnesses are Dr Wanda Wyporska, Raph Mokades, Prof Tim Blackman and Prof Geoffrey Alderman.
Producer: Dan Tierney.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:03.7 | Good evening. It may be going too far to say three years at Oxford or Cambridge |
| 0:07.7 | actually guarantees success in life, but their alumni do seem to end up running the place. |
| 0:13.1 | They only educate 1% of the population, but have produced 80% of our Prime Ministers, |
| 0:17.8 | 60% of Whitehall's current permanent secretaries, half the country's leading journalists, and so it goes on. |
| 0:24.0 | The question is whether this is meritocracy at work or the perpetuation of privilege. |
| 0:28.9 | Data obtained by the Labour MP David Lamy has shown up some striking disparities. |
| 0:34.1 | Four out of five students who get in come from the top two social classes children of professionals and managers |
| 0:40.1 | more come from the London commuter belt than the entire north of England there are not that many |
| 0:45.1 | British blacks the majority now do come from states to calls but critics have seized on these figures |
| 0:51.0 | to accuse the Oxford colleges of a continuing bias in favour of the middle and upper classes and against the poor. |
| 0:57.6 | The universities maintain they take the brightest and go to great lengths to encourage applications from less well-off students and disadvantaged parts of the country. |
| 1:05.9 | Their supporters say it's not their job to make up for a school system that fails so many children, |
| 1:10.6 | and that state |
| 1:11.2 | school teachers, for political and other reasons, actively discourage their best pupils from going |
| 1:16.2 | to Oxbridge. A survey by the Sutton Trust last year found 40% of state teachers would not |
| 1:22.5 | advise their cleverest students to apply. Their critics want the bar to be lowered for the less advantaged. |
| 1:29.4 | They argue that an A-grade from a struggling comp is surely worth more than one from |
| 1:33.4 | Eaton, that the current system creates an elite increasingly divorced from ordinary people, |
| 1:38.5 | and even that social mobility is a higher-order moral good than academic excellence. |
| 1:44.6 | Elitism and equality in the dreaming spires. |
| 1:46.8 | Our moral maize tonight. |
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