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| October | 11 |
| 2004 |
Remember the direct grant schools? As a group of self-governing, state-funded schools, that took bright pupils from state primary schools, they were once a beacon of excellence. The direct grant schools opened up some of the country’s best schools to pupils with ability rather than wealth.
Their story is a parable for our times. On the altar of equal opportunity, the 1974-79 Labour Government abandoned the scheme. Like almost all acts of social engineering, its actions made worse the very problem it was seeking to overcome. Poor pupils who once had access to excellent private schools were thereafter denied hope. And those schools that once bridged the private-state school gulf were driven into becoming fully private, their doors closed to the poor.
Cut to 30 years later. For direct grant, read Oxbridge. Same story, different actors. This time round, the story goes thus. The Government has decreed that Oxford must recruit 77 per cent of its undergraduates from state schools, regardless of the relative abilities of applicants. If it does not meet the arbitrary “benchmark”, the university will be fined.
Labour’s methods are not merely crass, in expecting Oxford to act as a remedial centre for state pupils, but grotesquely counter-productive. As a direct consequence of its policies, fewer, not more, state school pupils will be able to benefit from an Oxford education.
In the context of funding constraints which, with every passing term, drag Oxford further down the international league of excellence, Oxford has no choice but to remove itself altogether from the Government’s clutches and to follow the direct grant schools into the private sector. Even Lord Butler of Brockwell, high priest of the wisdom of the State as a former Cabinet secretary, and now Master of University College, has spoken of the need for such a move “sooner rather than later”.
As a private institution, it will be free to set its own fees at a realistic level and it will be able to decide for itself who it admits. But unlike such private universities as Harvard, whose £20 billion of endowments allow it to offer scholarships to all who merit them, regardless of their wealth, a pauperised Oxford will simply not have the means. A triumph, yet again, for the most pervasive rule in public policy: the law of unintended consequences.
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Well said, Stephen Pollard!
Your point about an impoverished Oxford being unable to offer scholarships to outstanding achievers is well put, and that is tragic, but it is still better that they leave the state sector right now and get started on the path to gathering endownments. Better get out now, while they still have a worldwide reputation and therefore have the ability to attract, over the years, students who will achieve and contribute to alumni funds to create scholarships eventually, than stay withering on the socialist vine.
.... sad but true.
But it's going to that much harder for the Second Division, the best of the red-bricks.
But in the good old days when Oxford was accumulating this great reputation, weren't most undergraduates there because their dads could pay, rather than because of their colossal intellects? Exam passes were not even a requirement for admission until well into the 19th century, IIRC. Public school thickos who could barely pass "Divvers" were more common than geniuses until long after WW2.
Given the apparent lack of correlation between today's A Level grades and results in finals, would it impair academic reputation if the intake were to be more of a social cross-section?
As I understand it, the real deficiency is in research and the calibre of academic staff, due to lack of funds for salaries, building and equipment. Would it not be best to make Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group institutions research-only campuses, and finance their activities accordingly? This would stimulate teaching in the next rung down-- the better Scotch places, redbricks and plateglasses-- by supplying more promising human material to work upon.
But why is "social cross-division" a better guarantor of aptitude than wealth?
Quite right, David.
Cuthbert Bede says: "Would it not be best to make Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group institutions research-only campuses, and finance their activities accordingly?"
In other words, keep it under state control, governed by career bureaucrats who hold the purse strings pursuing their own agendas. State interference and state control in any area produces nothing but mediocrity.
If Oxford and Cambridge are to continue to be held in high academic regard all over the world, they have no choice but to chuck the government out and follow the sublime examples of the US ivy leagues - and other excellent US universities, too. As I said above, there isn't much time. They should get out now, while they still can.
Verity: Almost all academic research is funded by governments or by companies with close governmental connections, such as aerospace and defence industries. This is just as true of the Ivy League, MIT or Stanford as it is of Oxbridge. Private endowments in the USA largely finance undergraduate teaching and accomodation. The gap between the private and public sectors is not as wide as some British dons wistfully suppose.
"State interference and state control in any area produces nothing but mediocrity."
I'm afraid this sort of crawlbot affirmation does not cut much ice anywhere nowadays.
Tell you what Cuthbert old chap...
That orbital plane thingy last week, it seemed to be funded by private research for about the price of a toilet seat on the shuttle...
Maybe university should be funded optionally, like by the "social cross section" that actually goes there?
My 3 yr IT degree could have been bootcamped (with better teaching, a more useful course & CHEAPER) in about 6 to 10 weeks! But except for my liver I was pretty happy @ uni.
It's pretty obvious that "State interference and state control in any area" turns a positive sum game into a negative sum game.
Cuthbert Bede - of course a lot of funding of the great universities comes from private industry - as so it should as they will be the beneficiaries - with or without close government connections.
That means the the funding is provided by capitalists, not inept politicians or civil servants, few of whom are on speaking terms with the profit motive. Whether those capitalist establishments providing funding for university programmes they need, and maybe also bursaries for exceptional minds, eventually sell their product to governments or others in private industry or to the public at large is their decision. It is unalloyed capitalism that provides motivation for risk. Columbus didn't set out to cross the Atlantic because he was hoping to join a committee.
Wasn't Columbus state-funded?
Columbus would have done better to stay at home, but his voyage was in fact an example of state-sponsored enterprise by Spain.
"That orbital plane thingy last week, it seemed to be funded by private research for about the price of a toilet seat on the shuttle..."
Building on decades of government-financed space research, however.
Most colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were founded by religious bodies, rich landowners or the monarch (King's, Cambridge). Some were set up with the mediaeval equivalent of tax breaks. Hence they owe their existence to a complex, mutable mixture of public and private provision.
In recent times most university-based scientific research financed by corporations has been a matter of their subcontracting lines of inquiry whose sine qua non is a government commission. The propaganda fantasies of the 1980s about "free enterprise" that Verity keeps pumping out never had much to do with the real interface between Whitehall and big-business boardrooms. There is no such thing as "unalloyed capitalism" and never has been.
There's also no such thing as a well meaning state.
How much state help did the wright brothers get?
How much help did Charles Dyson get?
How much help did Neil Armstrong get? He should have waited till Richard Branson could afford to give him a lift.
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