Community: Real Life

State school queue jumpers


Ruth

Ruth is a 16-year-old private school student who is keen to start her A-levels and (barring any obstacles) hopes to go to Oxford or Cambridge.

Ruth believes that well-off and brainy people are being discriminated against in the race for university places and poor state school students are jumping the queue.

The people with the power say they want to see good students from poor families going to the best universities. Well yes, in theory that would be nice. Well done Education ministers, that truly is an excellent idea, which should work to improve society and remove some social barriers experienced by those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. But, and this is a big but, should this aim be achieved at the cost of other students who happen to have been born with either wealthy parents or natural intelligence?

It has recently emerged that many leading universities including Bristol, Nottingham and Edinburgh are discriminating against pupils educated at independent and grammar schools and are instead favouring pupils from state schools. The reasoning behind this is that students from independent and grammar schools have received a superior level of education and so the grades they achieved are due to the standard of education, not their natural ability. This is opposed to state schools where the standard of teaching is low and modern facilities are scarce. Although this theory does make some sense, should a student who achieves four A's in their A levels and a student who manages three B's really be judged comparatively?

Having said this, I can understand why independent school children are subject to this discrimination. Private school children are given a higher quality education purely because their parents shell out to ensure that their child receives the results that they should be getting. Not to say that private school children don't deserve their achievements - you cannot get an A at A- level without some sort of intelligence and hard work. But it is likely that if many of them had attended state schools, the grades achieved wouldn't be quite as high. After all, private schools themselves boast about the amount of 'value added' they achieve. This is the amount a child improves from their capability in Year Seven to their capability in Year Thirteen. This always tends to be higher in private schools and suggests a trend that going to private school will improve a student's grades. So the government is right in one respect.

"Many private and grammar schools have expressed their concern about this ridiculously unfair favoritism."

However, the case is completely different with grammar school children. Some grammar schools do have marginally better teaching and facilities than state schools, but the real difference is in the atmosphere at these schools, where there is little fighting or bullying and most of the children genuinely do want to work. In grammar schools, the notion that school work equals social hell just doesn't exist, so pupils can excel without peer pressure leading them astray. The main reason why grammar school children should not be discriminated against is because grammar schools are non fee-paying, and so open to all. Well, all those with brains.

Many private and grammar schools have expressed their concern about this ridiculously unfair favoritism, however most universities are continuing to support the idea that state school children should be given an advantage. They do not seem to spare a thought for all those children attending grammar schools who worked their socks off for their exams and then find out that, quite simply, it wasn't worth it as their hard work and intelligence doesn't count in the eyes of universities.

By introducing this train of thought into the university entrance system, the government is creating a great deal more discrimination. My feeling is that if a child from a disadvantaged background wants to work then they will, and if they achieve the grades they need to attend university then they can. But the angle the government is taking on the problem is bizarre and is too discriminatory to be accepted by the majority of people. Universities have gone raving mad. How could they refuse to accept an A grade student simply because they had the brains to attend a grammar school, or for that matter the money to attend a private school?

Updated: 08/07/2005


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