Oxbridge‘right to help state pupils’

OXFORD and Cambridge should give a university place to a pupil from a state school over one from the independent sector if they get the same grades, the Education Secretary has said.

Nadhim Zahawi argued that there were times when someone from a disadvantaged background should be given a leg up to help them succeed.

‘If there are two students, one has gone to my brilliant state schools, and they are getting better every day, and one has gone to an independent school and they get the same set of results at A-levels, then actually the university should take the boy from the state school,’ he told Sky News .

‘Why? Because he’s had greater challenges to overcome to get the same results.’ But he added: ‘What I don’t think we do; we don’t level up by dragging people down.

‘I don’t want to attack independent schools, they do a great job, they are joining us on this journey.’