Room at the top
“Only” 50% of Oxbridge places go to the 7% of students from private schools, and since lots of private schools aren’t that good, most probably come from an even smaller pool of talent.
Since so many of the top jobs go to top graduates, the whole system is rigged for the wealthy to get their “awfully nice but Tim” children ahead in life.
When 70% or more of top journalists, judges, lawyers, doctors and all the rest come from 7% of the population, you are appointing the wrong people, wasting the talents of millions of people, undermining the economy, promoting the incompetent and ignoring the talent available to the country.
Might I suggest that what we really need is a series of scholarships and funds for the poor, not open to the children of the well paid or those at private school, funded by local government so they are regionally based. The resulting graduates would have to teach for 2 years to pay back the debt they owe.
Even then the schemes would have to be re-launched every 5 years or so, as the middle classes would have found a way of turning them to their advantage by then.
Oh and top universities could only take 7% of their students from private schools.
It seems fair to me, unless you think that the children of rich people are naturally better and more talented than the rest of the population. But then if you think that, why do they need to be bought a better education than everyone else in order to succeed?
Discuss
From Jonty Bloom Media Ltd
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
Spot on! Britain needs an end to the cycle of purchased privilege.
Even better to have a proper programme of investment in state schools - buildings, resources and teachers - so that the ‘higher flyers’ aren’t taken away to some sort of elite institution, leaving the rest to feel discarded as second best, while removing all tax/charity/donation privileges from private schools to help ‘levelling up’. Bit socialist radical I guess, but …