It could have a silver lining, though.
First, as things are at present, independent school students offering Latin must continue to have a good chance of university admission, because the state sector, alas, produces so few candidates in the Classics. Indeed, as overall intake from independent schools decreases, for an independent school pupil to take Classics A level may be an even better option than at present. Those offering other subjects will find the competition fiercer each year (see the Warwick University spokesman's satirical forecast).
Secondly, and more positively for the future, this ruling provides extra ammunition for those (including you, I hope) who are pressing state schools to take up the government-backed e-learning project and re-introduce Latin. If state schools are almost guaranteed a high percentage of university places, and Latin is already a good bet for winning a place in what the Times calls 'top universities', then the logic is clear: the Head and Governors of a state school can better their position in the university entry league table by teaching some of their best pupils Latin. Surely schools want to raise their status? Gently point out how Latin helps.
September 30, 2004
Top universities 'blackmailed' to take state pupils
By Tony HalpinVice-chancellors say they are being told to put quantity before quality over new admissions targets
PRIVATE schools accused the Government of “blackmail” yesterday after top universities were set tough new targets for the admission of students from the state sector.
Vice-chancellors told Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, that the goals were unattainable unless elite universities were forced to change their admissions policies by diluting academic standards.
The 19 leading universities in the Russell Group complained that they had not been consulted before the admissions “benchmarks” were introduced.
Some fear that the Government’s new Office for Fair Access (Offa), dubbed “OffToff” by critics, will use them in negotiations on agreements to expand access before allowing universities to increase tuition fees to £3,000-a-year in 2006.
Fee-paying schools believe that this could lead to the rejection of thousands of their students by universities taking state candidates to boost their performance against their benchmarks.
The Independent Schools Council (ISC) said: “If universities bow to this scarcely concealed blackmail, there is little doubt that many individual injustices will occur in future admissions to universities.” It said that the “alarming” changes flew in the face of this month’s government report on admissions by Steven Schwartz, which had urged universities to treat applicants as individuals and not representatives of groups or classes.
The biggest increases were at Oxford and Cambridge, now expected to take 77 per cent of entrants from state schools compared with their former targets of 69 and 68 per cent respectively. Last year the proportion of entrants from state schools at Cambridge rose by nearly three percentage points to 57.6 per cent. Oxford’s state school intake rose by 0.4 of a percentage point to 55.4 per cent.
Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge, said: "This benchmark now as far as we are concerned is totally ludicrous. It is something we won't achieve unless we totally change our selection procedures. The new system is going to mean that leading universities are never going to hit their benchmarks, so what is the value of it?”
Dr Parks said: “We are looking for A grades in certain A-levels as the requirement for those courses. We can’t substitute quantity for quality in these courses and that is what the Ucas tariff allows you to do.” Jane Minto, director of admissions at Oxford, said: “The switch to using the Ucas tariff system means that students are being analysed for our benchmark who in reality do not have the necessary academic attainment to make a successful application to Oxford.”
Warwick exceeded its former benchmark of a 76 per cent target this year only to discover that the bar had now been raised to 82 per cent.
A spokesman said: “This is not so much moving the goalposts as cutting them down, sticking them on another field and playing rugby. How can this be defensible? It completely undermines the credibility of the whole process.
“If we continue to be asked to improve our intake by six percentage points a year, we will need to recruit 106 per cent of our students from state schools by 2008. We look forward to being asked to meet that benchmark.”
Professor Michael Sterling, chairman of the Russell Group, said that members were “very worried” by the changes.
The Russell Group comprises: Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Imperial College London, University College London, Warwick, Leeds, the London School of Economics, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Southampton, King's College London and Manchester.
A spokeswoman at the DfES insisted yesterday that Offa’s remit did not allow it to punish universities for missing “milestones” in their access agreements. But it could take account of their progress when agreements came up for renewal.
