Private school pupils ‘forced’ into university

Former headmaster says anything other than higher education is considered a ‘disgrace’ and a ‘failure’

Private school pupils are being forced into university to avoid being seen as a “failure” when in fact they would be better suited to other options, the chairman of the Independent Schools Council has said. Barnaby Lenon, a former headmaster of Harrow, criticised school leaders who taught students that their only option after A-levels was university, even if they were not academic. “We need far better careers advice in schools that doesn’t automatically tell you to read English at Exeter University,” he said.

PRIVATE school pupils are wrongly forced into university because other options are seen as a “disgrace” and a “failure”, the chair of the Independent Schools Council (ISC) has said.

Barnaby Lenon, a former headmaster at Harrow School, has made a stinging critique of school leaders who signal to students that the only desirable option for them after A-levels is to enter higher education. “I am sick of not particularly academic students saying they are going off to read English or psychology – just because they have been told to,” he said. “We need far better careers advice in schools that doesn’t automatically tell you to read English at Exeter University.”

He said that “very bright 17 and 18-year-olds who could go to a Russell Group university” must be informed of other options.

Mr Lenon, 63, whose first job in teaching was at Eton College, said that attitudes toward higher education were completely different back then.

“When my Etonian pupils left school and went straight into the Army or to get a job, nobody worried, it wasn’t a disgrace,” he said. “But now it would be a sense of failure. And that is a pity.”

He said that students would go on to train as accountants, or become stockbrokers or traders. “By age 21 they were swanning around in their sports cars when all the university students were still struggling on,” he said. “We have allowed universities to become far too big, with far too many people going. Many are going to low-tariff universities and doing courses that don’t enhance their employability at all.”

The most recent ISC annual census, which collects information from 1,301 fee-paying schools, shows that 91 per cent of all private school pupils went on to higher education in 2016, a proportion that they say has “changed little over time”.

The majority (55 per cent) go to the elite Russell Group universities, including 6 per cent who win places at Oxford or Cambridge.

Last year, Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter and Durham – all of which are members of the Russell Group – were the most popular destinations, with 15 per cent of all privately educated students ending up at one.

Mr Lenon blamed the explosion in the number of students going to university on the “greatly weakened further education sector, which he said had been under-funded for years.

“We are spectacularly bad at offering sub-degree courses. We used to have large numbers doing foundation degrees or middle-level courses,” he said.

“There are independent schools now beginning to talk about high-level apprenticeships. But there aren’t enough at the moment.”

He said that the most pressing problem for ministers ought to be the reform of further education.

“We need courses that will lead to hospital technicians, assistant nurses, middle-level technology or IT people,” he said. “We have an egg timer-shaped economy and education system where we have far too many going to university. Everyone knows this. This is the next big reform that we are looking for.”

He said there was a “wind of change”, and predicted that attitudes will shift away from seeing university as the “inevitable” option for school leavers – which he said will continue “as long as people are reminded that debt is £50,000 and interest is very high”.

Earlier this week, the commandant of Sandhurst said that the British Army is filled with university graduates as students increasingly feel that getting a degree is “the done thing”.

General Paul Nanson, commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, said that the Army needs to “get back into schools and get the message out”.