Lord Adonis wants Oxbridge to set up colleges for poor kids

[noblegiraffe]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/09/oxford-cambridge-colleges-state-school-students

Presumably so the other colleges can concentrate on the rich ones.

[Sallygoroundthemoon]

What a ridiculous idea. Poorer students can go to any college as it is! The one I went to was something like 75% state school pupils.

[cakeisalwaystheanswer]

Its a bit like making FSM children sit on a separate dining table and tatooing FSM across their foreheads so everyone they meet later in life knows which table they sat at.

[Baublebauble]

The line in his penultimate paragraph is telling: The idea that 3,000 state schools can’t produce a few hundred able Oxbridge students, with the right encouragement and extra support, is farcical.

That's the whole point and he's missed it. Your average state school realistically doesn't have the resources and knowledge to support bright yet disadvantaged pupils to gain a place at Oxbridge. The solution is better support for schools, not creating some sort of hideous special colleges for poor kids, which sounds like a particularly divisive way of lowering the bar.

[SalrycLuxx]

Awful idea. Let’s concentrate them all into some new college with no history, inevitably located well out of the centre, and unless they magically shoot up the ranking tables we can reinforce ideas about state students all being second rate...

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

The culture is for kids not to go to oxbridge - well it was in my day. It wasn’t assumed that you would even try. My head of year almost passed out when she asked what I was planning to do when I left school and I told her I had a place at uni.

[SalrycLuxx]

And I’m sure that there are plenty who could go - but what does he propose to do about poorly funded schools, lack of ambition in some communities, children being told ‘tha’s not for the likes of us’, lack of opportunities to do extra curriculars?

[Davros]

He's a dickhead and not known for his good work dead. HS2 anyone?

[Davros]

Work dead!!! Ideas

[EdgyMcNervous]

Presumably so the other colleges can concentrate on the rich ones

Exactly - it let's everyone else off the hook and creates a two-tiered system.

Agree with other posters about school funding cuts, resources and also the culture shift needed in some schools (I tried encouraging some girls at a London secondary - where I was doing work experience as a recent graduate - to apply to Oxford, and they were adamant that their teacher had told them they couldn't apply unless they'd been to a private school )

My old college recently set up a foundation year programme www.lmh.ox.ac.uk/prospective-students/foundation-year
which sounds to me like an excellent idea though it's early days and I haven't seen any independent data. It's fully funded and designed to help students from under-represented groups access degrees at Oxford.

[EdgyMcNervous]

Lets not let's!

[BubblesBuddy]

Adonis is a non elected blue sky thinker. Unfortunately people take notice of him. I think he was behind academy schools? Others will know better than me! He likes spending government money and government keeps agreeing to it!

Hopefully not in this case. Yes to wider participation, no to segregation! Having said that, there are universities in the USA that were set up for Afro American students. No one seems to criticise them. However innthis day an age, I don’t like the idea of segregation and division in the same institution as suggested.

[bengalcat]

What a prize penis he is

[recently]

Competely misses the point! I got top A-level results which I know doesn't guarantee an Oxbridge place but my state school had no clue on how to apply! When I went up to interview I was competing with people who had been intensively preparing for MONTHS. Needless to say, I didn't get in!

[BubblesBuddy]

Actually prepping for months doesn’t necessarily help. A naturally inquisitive personality and being able to articulate your thoughts well is the key. Not all the prepped types get in. They spot them a mile off! It doesn’t mask the student not being good enough. If you are saying you didn’t have confidence, that’s a different issue.

[williteverend99]

He's a twat. A few years ago these idiots were suggesting special grammar school sets for 'poor kids' who 'didn't meet the grade. Not suggesting that bright students on lower incomes are supported to do 11plus and helped to pass, no given a free pass and segregated in a different part of the school. Fuck off.

I think that of all people, Andrew Adonis, who was abandoned by his parents and brought up in the care system, has unique insights into the difficulties faced by clever disadvantaged children. It is to his credit, that despite his phenomenal success against the odds, he has not forgotten his roots and continues to campaign to help those like him.

Some of the comments on this thread are just offensive.

[noblegiraffe]

I did see on Twitter the suggestion that the colleges full of poor kids should be the established ones like Trinity and the rich kids could be shunted out to the new ones. That would be interesting!

I think the suggestion upthread of colleges setting up foundation years is a better one for improving access.

[BarbarianMum]

Oh I think it's a great idea. I mean, you dont want to spend all that money educating them privately only to have them have to compete on a level playing field at Oxbridge.

Maybe the poor people's colleges could be a bit like the work house?

[marytuda]

I welcome any contribution to this debate and don't see any reason to be abusive, however you may rate Adonis’ idea . . . The point IMO is that if Oxbridge were serious about welcoming low-income applicants, they would have to change their culture in a way I doubt they are prepared to. Because they are not just elitist in intellectual terms, but also socially. At the moment, it is in their DNA that only the exceptionally able AND exceptionally privileged are at home there. . . . To fit in socially, even now, I imagine, it helps enormously to have an easy relationship to wealth and upper-middle class mores (ski-breaks, private education, hired domestic staff as standard) that your ex- comp student, however brainy, won’t. Many very bright comp students don't consider applying for this reason; why should they? when there are a plethora of great London colleges and other RG unis around where they know they will feel more at ease.
A big influx of non-privileged brains at Oxbridge (however achieved) might just tip that balance, but the colleges, while they might encourage a few underprivileged individuals, are bound to resist that critical-mass-assault on their very soul, just as top private schools do.
I write from experience; it's a long time ago now, and I was a fairly middle-class, ex-grammar school girl (in the days when comps barely existed), but still I was miserable at Oxbridge, without the social or self-confidence to deal with the, often demeaning treatment meted out to the very few state school girls there at the time by ex-public school boys - and occasionally by male staff.
Did anyone see the film Posh? Remember the scene where the state-school girlfriend is pimped to the posh students in exchange for paying off her student debt? Decades later that awakened some painful repressed memories. I do believe changes are bound to be minimal in places which take such pride in august tradition, good and bad.
A good piece from Carole Cadwalladr:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/oxbridge-perpetuates-inequality

[titchy]

You can't write from your experience if that experience was years ago. Oxford and Cambridge are very different places now. The majority of students are state educated for a start, admittedly a lot in grammars, but the idea that you have to ski and have a housekeeper in order to fit in is ridiculous.

As obviously is Adonis's idea.

[recently]

Bubbles - true, and I did lack confidence but there was also something very specific that I should have done in preparation that I didn't know about that everyone else did!

[Genevieva]

It is not the job of universities to make up for the failings of the Department for Education. It is for the government to give children the opportunity to reach their potential. It is also about time the government realised that there are many measures of success - not just A Level results and university degrees.

[AtiaoftheJulii]

but the colleges, while they might encourage a few underprivileged individuals, are bound to resist that critical-mass-assault on their very soul

Fucks sake. This is just offensive rubbish. Are you literally basing your whole argument on your long-past experience? Because maybe you should try doing some up-to-date research.

If we're pulling anecdata out of our arses, I was a lower middle class kid on a variety of scholarships to private schools, and I had a bloody brilliant time at Oxford. Even without the ski breaks or domestic staff!

[AtiaoftheJulii]

As for Adonis's idea ... I'm definitely not keen on the segregation aspect, but it's sort of interesting. There are some subjects which are very private school heavy, and some which are dominated by state school students. Increasing numbers on the latter could be one way of shifting proportions, but resources (such as college accommodation and staff) are finite (or at least slow and expensive to increase) which would mean decreasing numbers on other courses - no one wants to make classics fellows redundant though So this is a different way of providing more resources.

I'm wondering whether he's party to any inside conversations about this stuff or whether he's just completely fantasising. I love that he's offering to help found a new college Do we think he's planning on stumping up a large pile of readies, or just wants to tell everyone what to do?

[BubblesBuddy]

He usually wants to tell people what to do. Just because he had a difficult upbringing doesn’t make him right! Also what’s his family situation got to do with HS2? Why doesn’t he champion British industry to build the railway? He’s conveniently forgotten the need for jobs in the uk! As I said, he’s accountable to no one.