[TimmonaPortella]

(Original post by perrytheplatypus)
^ This is one one the problems.

Quotas aren't the best way, but I can't think of anything else that'd work...

Maybe let admissions staff, who are, unlike you, experienced and able in assessing academic potential and capability, make their own decisions, and take background into account in the way they see fit?

Radical suggestion, I know.

[JW92]

It is nonsense to enforce quotas - it's a lazy attempt at fixing a complicated problem. The link between attending a state school and being disadvantaged is a loose one at best anyway.

[James4d]

So parents paying thousands of pounds a year for private education are in the knowledge their students won't be guaranteed a place at university simply because they went to that school?

****ing ridiculous. UK politics is just one big piss take after the other.

[OMGWTFBBQ]

This will not happen.

Oxbridge would leave the state sector. Which would open up the floodgates, probably allowing other universities (I'm looking at the Russell Group consortium in particular) to leave.

The Government can't push too hard, because once they loose Oxbridge (who have repeatedly warned them against setting any sort of quota on their admissions), the whole system would fall apart.

[TooSexyForMyStethoscope]

(Original post by Teaddict)
But it is fair to discriminate based on academic ability and that's what Simon Hughes appears to be attacking... how dare Universitie choose the most able and academically capable.

It's nonsense - they should choose the best - end of.



Grade inflation at state schools you mean?



You make the assumption that everyone at private school is rich - that just isn't the case and hasn't been the case for years. You seem to be supporting educational background discrimination here.

I think the government (generally, not just the current one) like to think that the quality of state school teaching can be just as good as that of the fee paying schools. Obviously there are huge variations, but perhaps they feel that the numbers do not reflect that. This announcement is an attempt to make it more balanced.

Even if you don't agree with the policy, you have to put yourself in Mr. Hughes shoes. It does not look good for the country if the overwhelming majority of people at the top universities are from private school. I agree with you that these universities pick the best, regardless of which school they went to. But it's the image that apparently needs addressing.

[bzly]

OH MY GOD it should be about academic ability.

[danny111]

What an *******.

Rather than make universities suffer in order to create more equality, they should attack the real cause of the problem which is the fact that private schools are so much better. Make state-funded schools better. Concentrate on that, not shifting the responsibility to others.

[Teaddict]

(Original post by TooSexyForMyStethoscope)
I think the government (generally, not just the current one) like to think that the quality of state school teaching can be just as good as that of the fee paying schools.

I won't deny government their delusions. Some state schools will be as good, but some will not.

Even if you don't agree with the policy, you have to put yourself in Mr. Hughes shoes. It does not look good for the country if the overwhelming majority of people at the top universities are from private school. I agree with you that these universities pick the best, regardless of which school they went to. But it's the image that apparently needs addressing.

Oh I can see it now. If I were Mr Hughes I would be worrying as well, what with the public being angry at the Liberal Democrats he must claw his way up to survive, even if it means putting foward "ideas" like these.

Look good for the country? What it says is that after years of comprehensive education changes from Labour, nothing has improved and in fact is getting worse. Perhaps we are looking at comprehensive education wrong and thus the changes we should be making shouldn't be made to make children "equal" but to ensure that those with potential excel while those without don't hold those with back.

[TooSexyForMyStethoscope]

(Original post by Teaddict)
I won't deny government their delusions. Some state schools will be as good, but some will not.



Oh I can see it now. If I were Mr Hughes I would be worrying as well, what with the public being angry at the Liberal Democrats he must claw his way up to survive, even if it means putting foward "ideas" like these.

Look good for the country? What it says is that after years of comprehensive education changes from Labour, nothing has improved and in fact is getting worse. Perhaps we are looking at comprehensive education wrong and thus the changes we should be making shouldn't be made to make children "equal" but to ensure that those with potential excel while those without don't hold those with back.

I don't really want to get into labour's legacy, I am just trying to understand the reasoning behind the current policy.

The current figures could be interpreted by some people as 'Only toffs are allowed to go to the best universities' . We both know that there are a lot of other factors than simply wealth and social status, but some people may choose not to recognise them. The government needs people that are not sending their children to public schools to vote for them, hence the appeasing policy.

[Maker]

(Original post by OMGWTFBBQ)
This will not happen.

Oxbridge would leave the state sector. Which would open up the floodgates, probably allowing other universities (I'm looking at the Russell Group consortium in particular) to leave.

The Government can't push too hard, because once they loose Oxbridge (who have repeatedly warned them against setting any sort of quota on their admissions), the whole system would fall apart.

Let them leave the state sector if they want. I don't think the system will fall apart at all. Most countries have a mix of private and public unis and people can choose which ones they prefer and can afford.

[Beska]

(Original post by Maker)
Let them leave the state sector if they want. I don't think the system will fall apart at all. Most countries have a mix of private and public unis and people can choose which ones they prefer and can afford.

Of course it will. If policies are put in place that are ridiculous as this, do you think any self-respecting university would actually remain? Of course not. The discussion is not on the coexistence of private/public, it is on the fact that the 'public' universities would be forced to pick students on their backgrounds, not academic merit. Which university do you think will prosper, the university that is diverse or the university that has academically capable students?

[innerhollow]

A feeble attempt by the Lib Dems to regain popularity with low-income students. It's obviously a ridiculous argument. Universities should not reflect the make-up of society, they should reflect whoever is academically competent. It's another equality vs. uniformity problem. In a country like Britain, thankfully all demographics are equal, but they are most definitely not all uniform.

(Original post by modgepodge)
I'm not going to get massively involved in this arguement, but......Imagine 2 students both with exceptionally high IQ. They both work as hard as they can at school. However, one has parents who can afford to pay for their education, and as a result they attend the top school in the country and get A*A*A* or whatever. The other student lives in some **** hole and attends a crap comprehensive in an inner city. Depsite doing the best they can, due to crap teaching, they are only able to achieve ABB. Is it fair that they don't get to go to such a good uni? If they've got a good work ethic and are highly intelligent, there's no reason that they shouldn't do as well as the first student when given the same input at uni.

I don't come from either of these backgrounds, I went to a good comprehensive. But to completely ignore people's backgrounds means you WON'T get the best students at uni, you'll get the rich ones who went to private school and, dare I say it, had their A Levels spoon fed to them (contraversial I know), and perhaps won't do so well in the more independent working environment at uni.

I know you don't want to get drawn into this... but you did post something a very controversial argument, so even if you don't want to reply, here is my response.

The problem is with proven ability. Uni admissions nearly always boil down to grades at the end of the day simply because (lying/cheating notwithstanding) they are a concrete, irrefutable proof of academic ability It's fine to say for every ABB student who came from a comprehensive that they could have gotten better grades if they had better teachers... but you can say that about pretty much anything in life.

You also make the assumption that private-schooled students have a poor work ethic. I find that argument bizarre considering the whole point of a private school is that the atmosphere is more encouraging of a good work ethic. This idea that a private school teacher can take an incompetent and unmotivated student and turn them into an A-grade student is hugely flattering towards these teachers, but it's just not true in practice.

Personally, I feel VERY strongly that rather than expecting to be able to provide good teaching quality to every student (which is simply not feasible), all students should be provided with the resources they need to be able to easily teach themselves their A-level content. Therefore, anyone who wants to do well has the resources to do well. Teaching quality should not be an excuse for academic performance anymore in this age of information.

[Maker]

(Original post by Teaddict)


You make the assumption that everyone at private school is rich - that just isn't the case and hasn't been the case for years. You seem to be supporting educational background discrimination here.

I never said private school students are rich, don't mis-represent what I said.

I said they could afford private education so why not make them pay for higher education too since they have already proved they can afford it.

[Matthew_Lowson]

(Original post by Teaddict)
Top universities should be forced to restrict the number of private school pupils they admit so that their intake reflects society as a whole, Simon Hughes has said.

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, who was recently appointed the government's adviser on access to higher education, said institutions had "failed miserably" to take on a fair proportion of state school students.



He said that from 2012, when they are eligible to charge up to £9,000 a year in fees, universities who demand students pay at least £6,000 should have to tackle the admissions gap and raised the prospect that admissions criteria could be altered to force them to co-operate.




Any move to introduce quotas would be interpreted by some universities as an attack on their academic independence, and face strong resistance.




Mr Hughes, who was himself educated at private schools in Wales and at Selwyn College, Cambridge, said measures ought to be added to the statute book by the beginning of the next academic year.




He told The Guardian: "My message to the universities is: You have gained quite a lot in the settlement. Yes, you've lost lots of state money, but you've got another revenue stream that's going to protect you.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...ol-intake.html


This sort of thing really ticks me off... Evidently these private school students are just plain better otherwise the Universities wouldn't choose them. You cannot improve standards by forcing Universities to take less able students. You don't create better standards by dragging the top down.



It's nonsense.

Indeed, why should wealth determine whether I am a good student or a bad student!

Its what happens when you meddle with an unbroke system

[Teaddict]

(Original post by Maker)
I said they could afford private education so why not make them pay for higher education too since they have already proved they can afford it.

Because you are just charging people for buying their children a better education... It's backwards thinking.

[paddyman4]

University intake is't supposed to reflect society, where has that come from? Do we also we want the correct proportions of convicts, idiots, paedophiles and coma patients getting places?

Universities take the people that can thrive on their course. If state school kids are not getting in as much then the fault is with the schools, not the universities. At least the conservatives are finally trying to tackle the root cause rather than artificially manipulate everything to make it seem like everything is fine.

[Maker]

(Original post by Teaddict)
Because you are just charging people for buying their children a better education... It's backwards thinking.

So. The parents who put their kids into private schools want their kids to have an advantage over other kids in the state sector. They then expect to get an advantage over state sector kids by going back into the state uni system.

That is unfair and if Oxbridge and other unis want to leave the state sector to cater for privately educated kids, they should do as long as they pay back all the money the public has invested in them. This would mean they would have to charge similar amounts to the private unis in America of around £30,000 per year and more for expensive courses such as medicine and law.

[thurin]

So in an effort to stop universities from discriminating against state-school students, he wants universities to discriminate against public-school students? There's nothing more equal in this approach - discrimination is still being employed. It's double standards.
It's like setting quotas for ethnic minorities. There's nothing fair/equal in that at all! As everyone has said, universities should (and on the whole, do) pick the brightest and most likely to flourish at their university.
I'm all for phasing out public schools (I loathe the idea that wealth determines better education and healthcare, two foundations of society and determinants of success in life), but only when all comprehensives can provide all students with a fair and good education. It's utopian, but it's not exactly impossible.
(I'm lucky to go to a very, very good state-school, by the way...)

[metjush]

Ability should be the one and only criterion for university admission. Period.

(Statements like these always amuse me. Lib Dems and all the other "socially-liberal", "left-wing liberal" or whatnot talk all the time about social inclusion, equality and fairness. If that is the goal they want acheive, I somehow fail to see how it could be acheived by making the students from state and private schools unequal in admission... )

[adam_zed]

(Original post by milkytea)
No, just no.

I am from a poor background but managed to get a scholarship and therefore afford private education, do I deserve to face inverse discrimination because of that?

This is just Simon Hughes and indeed the Lib Dems feebly attempting to regain some popularity with poor students. Well I say *******s to that.

I agree with most of what Teaddict says, but this I dont. You were very lucky in that you realised your potential much earlier then most people or were just naturally more able. Though I agree it seems like a bit of a populist move, especially considering they were revealing it to the Guardian.