Oxbridge entry cannot be ‘tilted’ towards state pupils, says Zahawi
BRITAIN should be “proud” of its private schools and not “tilt the system” so more state pupils get into Oxbridge, the Education Secretary has said.
Nadhim Zahawi said merit should be the primary concern when deciding on admissions, and the key to better outcomes for disadvantaged children is raising the quality of state schools.
Mr Zahawi made the comments after Prof Stephen Toope, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, said the “premium” afforded to private school pupils could reduce over time.
In an interview with The Times, Mr Zahawi said: “You don’t create a system that people feel is fair and equitable by in some way thinking that there is an easy fix. The best thing you can do is create schools in the state system that are as good as independent schools. Which we are.
“I need to continue my journey to deliver more outstanding and high performing schools. That’s the right strategy. Not to say, actually, let me just accept that we’re not going to produce outstanding schools so let me just tilt the system away from children who are performing.” He added that setting aside “tribalism” was crucial if children across the country are to succeed.
Private schools educate around seven per cent of children. The proportion for sixth formers is believed to be about 12 per cent.
Earlier this month, Prof Toope said the increased intake of state school children at Cambridge – rising from 68.7 per cent in 2019 to 72 per cent last year – was “real progress”. The Harvard graduate, who leaves his post this September, said: “I would say we have to keep making it very, very clear we are intending to reduce over time the number of people who are coming from independent school backgrounds into places like Oxford or Cambridge.
“We’re doing it by welcoming others, not by telling those people we don’t want you. Individual students who are talented, we would want them, but they’re going to be competing against an ever-larger pool because there are more students coming from state schools who are seeing a potential place for themselves at Cambridge or Oxford or other Russell Group universities.”
Robert Halfon, the Conservative chairman of the education select committee, has said the status quo is “not a level playing field” and more change is needed to ensure a “meritocracy”.
However, private school leaders have criticised pitching independent institutions against their state counterparts. They argue that private schools have helped to set up state schools and that many state school pupils were from wealthy backgrounds.
Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, said that contextual admissions were “sensible” but it was wrong for the debate to descend into a face-off between private and state schools.
He said private schools supported their state counterparts and were responsible for helping top universities to select from a broader field.
It is time for the Treasury finally to get to grips with the inflationary explosion engulfing Britain, and to find a better way of working with the rest of the Johnson government. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has rightly attempted to thwart the spendthrift tendencies of many of his colleagues, but he has also exacerbated the cost of living crisis and shattered the Tories’ reputation for low taxes with his raids on National Insurance and corporations.
Some creative tension between Prime Minister and Chancellor is inevitable, and productive, but the current tug-of-war is beginning to smack of dysfunctionality.
Lord Moylan, a former senior adviser to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London, warns of a “constant standoff between the PM and his chancellor”. In yet another hangover of the New Labour years, a “diarchy” has replaced cabinet government, he argues: the Chancellor “runs all the domestic departments through detailed control of their budgets”, and, in extremis, the PM is reduced to negotiating with him.
It is time for the Chancellor and the PM to bury their differences, and to embrace a plan to rescue the economy, and their party’s fortunes. Taxes must come down, even at the cost of a higher deficit in the short-term: shock therapy is required, a bold, dramatic move that changes the public’s perception of the Conservative Party.
Public spending needs to be reined in, and ideally cut overall in 2022 in real terms. The latest pledge to axe up to 91,000 civil-service jobs is hugely welcome, but only returns Whitehall to its size around 2016. The UK needs austerity, sweetened by big tax cuts. At the same time, there must be a plan to reform the public sector: how will the NHS be made to deliver more for patients with the same amount of money?
There has to be a drive for economic growth, with radical incentives for private investment and housebuilding (droning on about levelling-up or green jobs is delusional). And it is clear that the post-1997 framework for monetary policy is no longer fit for purpose. It was amended, albeit insufficiently after the financial crisis, but consumer price inflation is out of control, as is asset inflation via house prices.
The Government should be tearing up the groupthink holding our country back – and yet the Treasury has seen fit to appoint another Remainer economist to the monetary policy committee. It cannot be acceptable for our elected politicians simply to point to the Bank of England’s operational independence and thus reject responsibility for the inflation crisis. They, not unelected economists, are ultimately in charge – and we need a very public intervention from the Government.
Don’t bash private schools
We should be “very proud” of Britain’s private schools and resist the urge to discriminate against their pupils; so says Nadhim Zahawi, and he is absolutely right. It is refreshing to see a Conservative Education Secretary, unencumbered by all the usual nonsensical class hang-ups that continue to plague much of his party, finally standing up for the private school system and the parents who make such sacrifices to pay for their children’s education.
The rest of the world looks up to our independent sector, and deems it the best on the planet, one of the UK’s last remaining assets. It helps attract top people in the race for talent. Rather than denigrating this success story, it would make more sense to examine what it gets right and copy it.
Mr Zahawi is also spot on about something else: the best way to narrow the gap between public and private is to improve state schools. Sadly, and here the Government is less forthcoming, state education was damaged catastrophically by the lockdowns and could take years to recover. The unions have been emboldened, and much of the progress undone.
Bias against the independent sector fails on its own terms. It is un-meritocratic: applications should be judged on an individual basis. It punishes aspiration, family values and individual responsibility, including from the growing number of first- or second-generation immigrant families who scrimp and save to educate their children.
It will undermine our universities: a brain-drain to America seems inevitable if bright students fear discrimination here. And it does nothing to fix the real problem, ie standards in state schools and the fact that too many comprehensive pupils continue to be discouraged from applying for university as a result of a disgusting culture of low expectations.
The educational blob loathes ambition and success, preferring the egalitarianism of shared failure. As long as he can show that he is focused on improving standards in state schools, Mr Zahawi’s welcome words of praise for the independent sector will also appeal to a small but significant slice of the population: prosperous, highly educated Southerners who voted Remain, educate their children privately but are defecting to Labour or the Liberal Democrats. There is, after all, clear blue water between the parties, or so Mr Zahawi’s intervention suggests.
Yet words are not enough: the Education Secretary may wish to see the end of the war against independent education, but in supposedly Tory Britain, Left-wing activists in the quangos and admissions offices are waging their destructive campaign regardless. Mr Zahawi must clip their wings, urgently.