No state-school quotas for Oxford
Oxford admissions tutors have denied the possibility that they might introduce a quota to improve numbers of state-school students.
Following reports at the weekend that two leading universities have made changes to their admissions procedures to improve state school pupils' chances, the Oxford Student has conducted an investigation into whether Oxford plans to do so too.
Bristol and Durham have set targets for departments including English, History and Law, that will cut their independent school intake by up to a quarter by next year.
One Bristol assessor said: "I give a lot of credit to people who are, say, head-girl or head-boy of a poor comprehensive, even if they're not predicted three A grades at A-level."
Bristol's medical school awards pupils from poorly-performing state schools extra admissions points.
Oxford Admission Office spokesperson Jane Minto denied any such procedures being introduced at Oxford. She said "there is no mechanistic approach to admissions at Oxford."
She continued, "We don't subscribe to quotas at Oxford and we don't select on factors other than merit and potential."
College admissions tutors have supported her views. Oriel's told the OxStu, "Oxford tutors should be able to select the best students, rather than being told how many of each category they should select by the government or some outside body."
The issue caused embarrassment for the higher education minister Margaret Hodge on Tuesday. Ms Hodge said she was going to "set a target" to increase the number of students from working class backgrounds in higher education by 2010. Later, however, under pressure from education minister Charles Clarke she was forced to back down saying that such a target would be "inappropriate", and that "we have no plans to introduce one."
Currently, around 55% of Oxford students are from state-maintained schools as compared to 45% five years ago.
27th Feb 2003