Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Social mobility
There are individual teachers and schools who are ambitious for their students. But too many in the state sector underrate their kids and advise them based on prejudiced views about top universities. This was my personal experience. It continues to be my professional experience working with schools across the country. Well done Libby Purves for this provocative article.
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2 comments:
My new batch of fresher tutees at Durham are a very mixed bunch in terms of background, and I think that bright Sixth Formers should be encouraged to seek out somewhere where this will be their experience, partly because the big wide world is like that, but also as an end in itself. They all gelled extremely well over dinner (and thereafter...) on Sunday evening.
If anything, people from the best state schools now faintly look down on people from minor public schools, at least. A reversion, I suppose, to the grammar school glory days of the Forties, Fifties and Sixties.
Of course, there is an obvious way to restore those glory days: restore the grammar schools, which did not notably discourage the products of humble homes from apllying even to the very swankiest universities. Nor did my comp, of course. But far too many comps do.
My God - some bunch of unlucky 18 year olds have David as their first experience of what (it appears) university life is like. The poor bastards.
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