Professors Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman in their book Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite have advocated that all Russell Group universities should not be allowed to take more than 10% of their entries from private schools (10% being the current proportion of university students nationwide who have been privately educated at some point). Oxford and Cambridge, within the system they propose, should receive their allocation by lottery from within the group of privately educated pupils who have achieved the top 5% of A Level results. This, they argue, is needed to ensure that the country’s elite becomes more meritocratic.
The book arrives at a timely moment. No previous Government would have looked seriously at these proposals. The current Labour Government, already at war with private schools over VAT, may well be tempted to give them consideration. As well as being in my opinion fundamentally unjust and unfair – like all affirmative action that puts aside the results of objective assessments – the consequences might be extremely negative, with major potential damage to a private school sector that is very successful in educating students and preparing them for higher education and from which the nation as a whole benefits.
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