State school pupils set to be favoured by Bristol University
BRISTOL University is among several educational establishments to bring in a system to weight the applications process in favour of students from poorer backgrounds.
It has been suggested that the points system being implemented by the city university would mean that children from poorer families might not have to achieve such high grades in their A-levels and GCSEs as those from more privileged backgrounds.
According to a national newspaper similar policies are being used by Edinburgh, Leeds and Birmingham universities to give students from more deprived families a better chance of winning a place on a course.
The government has been calling for universities to do more to attract a wider mix of students and has backed the use of information about applicants' backgrounds – referred to as contextual data – although ministers have not explained how it should be used.
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According to the report in the Sunday Telegraph many institutions said they would consider such data when choosing between applicants on a case-by-case basis.
It said that Bristol was bringing in a points system across all of its courses giving pupils from poor schools "an automatic weighting to their total academic score".
Critics of the process reportedly said the points systems amounted to "generic discrimination" and felt that tutors would be unable to select students they felt would benefit most from their course.
It has been suggested that universities are operating a points system where attending a low- performing school, coming from a neighbourhood where few people attend university and being in care weighted scores in applicants' favour.
Bristol was reported to have used such a scoring system for a third of courses this year and all applicants will be scored for the 2012/13 round of admissions.
Angela Milln, Bristol University's director of student recruitment, access and admissions, said: "We are considered in our use of contextual data and only include it within a selection process where we have strong and robust research evidence to indicate that the approach is appropriate."
Comments
by Phurr
Tuesday, August 07 2012, 12:45PM
“This will not affect the very rich as they will still pay out to get their kids and their mates will help them along the way. But the people who suffer will be people who have invested their money or effort and time in their child's education and their kids work hard.
So would a child with say a Mum who works at the University and a Dad who is a lawyer who has their child privately tutored after school, has had an internship in Dad's offices and holidays in the West Indies who attends Cotham be seen as more disadvantaged than a working class girl with two other siblings one with special needs and a working one parent mother who was lucky enough to get a scholarship to a private school?
The whole thing stinks.”
by green_man
Monday, August 06 2012, 11:52AM
“I agree strongly with Samantha1883. 65% of the Coalition Govt Cabinet went to either Oxford or Cambridge - this isn't because they are more intelligent, its because they are from richer, more privileged backgrounds. This is not a just, fair, desirable feature of our society. Any reasonable moves from top universities to make the system a bit fairer is welcome - after all Bristol University are not talking about admitting students with poor results, just those good students who if you account for their background are likely to have got even better results.”
by Marshwalker99
Monday, August 06 2012, 9:53AM
“Read and learn:
http://tinyurl.com/c3e8jk5”
by Samantha1883
Monday, August 06 2012, 8:56AM
“I think this a very good idea. A kid in poorer school getting all As and Bs has to be the equivilent of a child from a private school getting all A* they have higher class sizes to contend with, i'm guessing more distractions too from other pupils. As for children in care they aren't going to be getting lots of help from their parents either.
There must be advantages to a child being privately educated otherwise why would parents fork out thousands of pounds per term for the priviledge. This goes to show that they are likely to get higher marks and therefore concessions need to be made to children from less wealthy backgrounds.”
by PaulS81
Monday, August 06 2012, 8:25AM
“Personally i disagree with this but would be interesting to know what results the students who are allowed onto courses with lower marks actually get. Do they attain a very high level, 1st, 2:1 thus justifying this, or do they struggle or even drop out making it a total waste of social engineering? Yes there are some terrible schools which could hinder development around but in the vast majority of cases you get out what you put in and the only thing stopping you attaining high scores are your intellegence (yes unfortunately there are "thick" kids) and drive.”
by Marshwalker99
Monday, August 06 2012, 8:09AM
“Yet more creeping Communism.”
by Marshwalker99
Monday, August 06 2012, 8:06AM
“Yet more creeping Communism.”