Tag Archives: oxbridge

Opinion: fix our school system and stop uni-bashing

As a former constituent and activist in Bermondsey and Old Southwark I greatly enjoyed campaigning on behalf of Simon Hughes and have a lot of respect for his approach to policy and the hard work he puts in, especially meeting face to face with local voters and community groups. I was shocked, however, to read quotes from Simon on the front page of Saturday’s Guardian calling on universities to ‘cut intake’ from independent schools in order to match nationally ‘representative’ proportions: 7.2% was his quoted figure for the proportion of students we ought to aim at coming from an …

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Opinion: In pursuit of excellence

Earlier this month David Lammy MP highlighted the problem of the low number of black students admitted to Oxford and Cambridge Universities and called it the ‘Oxbridge Whitewash’. He wrote in the Guardian (6 Dec):

“Just one British black Caribbean student was admitted to Oxford last year. That is not a misprint: one student. Merton College, Oxford, has not admitted a single black student for five years. At Robinson College, Cambridge, a white applicant is four times more likely to be successful than a black applicant. Last year, 292 black students achieved three A grades at A-level and 475 black

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 15 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
  • Simon Robinson
    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...