http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/aug/17/oxbridgeandelitism.highereducation/education/2008/aug/17/oxbridgeandelitism.highereducation
Happy, firstly, because it's about time Britain's top universities acknowledged that access to education has been riddled with injustice since time immemorial and put in place some practical steps to help those from less-advantaged backgrounds overcome the deep-set impediments bestowed by their social and economic status. And happy, secondly, because Oxford - my university - has been bold enough to implement a scheme which is bound to aggravate many dons who, for a variety of reasons, oppose the use of contextual data in the admissions process.
Sure, it'll be difficult to implement, particularly at Oxford and Cambridge. Those universities' 'federal' systems means that compliance will vary from college to college; central admissions policies are always difficult to impose. But be imposed they must.
The criticisms? Some claim that it will lower academic standards. This is absolute nonsense. Firstly, as all the evidence shows, many students from less-advantaged backgrounds might underperform at GCSE and A-Level only to then outperform their more affluent peers at university-level. And you only need to look at the secondary school value-added table -much worthier as a measure of school performance than the crude league table - to realise that, in the right educational conditions, young people who hitherto have underperformed are able to quickly catch-up with wealthier counterparts and overcome their lifelong social impediments. So educational attainment does not decline. And secondly, the policy does not provide to admit students of lower academic merit; it simply guarantees that candidates from less-advantaged backgrounds will be guaranteed an interview if they meet the basic standards required by Oxford tutors (e.g. excellent academic potential). An interview is a much better way of assessing the raw potential of young people than analysing results on a piece of paper.
Some claim - and this perhaps has a little merit - that affirmative action serves to patronise. It is, I admit, about helping people onto the academic ladder. And many people are proud (like me) and would eschew such assistance. But surely it patronises only because, much of the time, poorer people are not conscious of the injustices they face? They have grown accustomed to a lowly status which is compounded by the immense difficulties of social mobility. In the words of Ernest Jones, the great Chartist leader, 'Does man know what he wants when he is starving? And sees the rich rolling in riotous profusion? Does a man know what he wants when he is sinking with over-work, that the healthy may enjoy their sumptuous indolence?' Affirmative action is about society acknowledging that we've been giving many groups of people a crappy deal for generations and working to redress the imbalance. That's not patronising. It's justice.
Some claim - as indeed do the critics mentioned in the article - that the use of contextual data in the admissions process will 'put middle-class applicants at an unfair disadvantage'. Firstly, no it won't. Affirmative action is decidedly not about disadvantaging anyone. Rather, it's about creating a level playing field; by creating a programme which compensates for deeply-imbued inequalities we ensure a greater degree of inclusion. Certainly the move to equality will mean that middle-class applicants have a diminished chance of admission - but that's what comes with having an equal process in which many more people can participate. And secondly, so what if it does? Isn't it about time the working classes got a larger bite of the cherry?
KEY QUOTE: "The
purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent...from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute. Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the doors of education [and] employment...to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination"
purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent...from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute. Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the doors of education [and] employment...to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination"(President Bill Clinton, 1995)
I also find myself perversely satisfied that the will of the student body is being ignored on this one. OUSU (Oxford University Students' Union) agreed an access and admissions policy earlier this year which, whilst advocating that the application fee be scrapped and that, in the interests of dispelling myths about Oxford, resources be targeted 'at under-represented groups and talented students in weaker schools to help raise aspirations', explicitly stated the following:
'No Positive Discrimination: There should be no form of positive discrimination or use of contextual data not related to a student's educational potential used in the admissions process...Such data includes, but is not limited to, an applicant's race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, geographical location, gender, sexuality or religion'.
According to OUSU, whilst 'educationally-based' contextual data - such as the number of students achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE and the average class size at the school - might be appropriate 'to inform decisions about admitting students at the margin', this contextual data should categorically not include 'anything reflecting the socioeconomic status of an applicant’s background including, but not limited to, the number of students in receipt of Educational Maintenance Allowance or free school meals, as this does not reflect an applicant’s own academic potential'.
As Pembroke's JCR President at the time, with a vote at Council, I abstained. But not before I'd proposed and voted for an amendment to strike out the 'No Positive Discrimination' clause and replace it with a passage indicating OUSU's support for affirmative action. My contribution is summarised in the not-too-brilliant minutes as 'Oxford should go for positive discrimination...should be mindful of people's backgrounds' [http://www.ousu.org/democracy/ousu-council/minutes/3rd-week-hilary-2008-minutes/] which doesn't do justice to the quality of my argument. Needless to say, of course, the amendment failed spectacularly - and I just couldn't bring myself to vote in favour of the rest of the policy with the offending clause still in existence. The fact is that contextual data is important. It reveals a great deal about the challenges individual young people have faced throughout their lives and which can be said to have impacted on their academic performance.
And so whilst I'd usually baulk at the idea of students' views being ignored - my day job is all about youth participation - I'm delighted that, in this instance, wiser heads have won the day. Many of my colleagues at university are just plain wrong on admissions. And this arguably - no disrespect intended - is borne of the fact that a great majority of Oxfordians are beneficiaries of an admissions system which favours the better-off: turkeys don't vote for Christmas, after all.
