Dreaming spires

Oxford University reports today (2 September 2016) that its 2016 entry has the highest proportion (59.2%) of state-school educated students for four decades. See the report from the BBC.

An Oxford College and two buses

No doubt this is good news, but it seems to me there’s a long way to go. Let’s have a bit of a further poke at this.

(Disclaimer: I went to state school and didn’t get a place at Oxford. But I’m trying my best not to have a chip on my shoulder about it. Going to LSE instead (again, a pretty elite institution) was the best thing that could have happened, and I really wouldn’t have thrived amongst the dreaming spires!)

Firstly, how what are the relevant populations? The most recent Department for Education data (nb this is for England only) give the following numbers of 16-18 year olds entered for at least one A level; I’ve added the proportion of the whole which this represents:

Students entered for at least one A level or Applied single/double award A level
State	153,034	59%
Independent	33,999	13%
FE College	74,468	28%
Total	261,501	100%

You’ll see that there are three categories of institution – state and independent schools, and FE Colleges. I haven’t been able to source the actual numbers from Oxford’s data, so don’t know the detail, but my assumption is that they mean that 40.8% of the 2016 intake come from the independent sector – that is, the 59.2% figure is the sum of all state-educated entrants. Why do I assume this? Because if they had entrants from FE colleges as well then it would be a stronger story that they’re becoming more diverse, and they’d have said so. So, 40.8% from independent schools it is.

This means that the 13% from the independent sector become over 40% of the total; and the almost 87% from the state sector become not quite 60%.

Oxford admitted just over 2600 UK-domiciled new undergraduates in 2014 (again, the most recently available data.) Assuming that this number stays about the same, then we can see how many independent and state-school educated students they will have, and compare it with what a proportionate distribution would look like:

	Percentage		Numbers
	Actual	National proportion	Actual	National proportion
State	59.2%	87.0%	1,539	2,262
Independent	40.8%	13.0%	1,061	338
Total	100.0%	100.0%	2600	2600

So the actual number of independently-educated students attending Oxford this autumn will be over three times the proportionate share of independent schools amongst those taking A levels - 1061 compared to 338. On a simple reading, you’re three times more likely to go to Oxford then you should be, if you go to an independent school.

What conclusions do I draw from this?

Firstly, there’s a manifest unfairness here. It is good that Oxford is doing something about it; and very good that that something is beginning to show results.  Three cheers for Oxford. And keep it up – you’ve a long way to go!

But the underlying unfairness is one which Oxford cannot be blamed for, and cannot address.  Independent schools are characterised mostly by their fee paying status. This enables them to have better facilities than state schools, and smaller class sizes. This in turn means that they are better at getting good A levels, and helping their students’ gain confidence. As long as this gap exists, between what state schools can do, and what independent schools can do, then we’ll see a difference in outcomes. And the difference in outcomes that we currently see is based primarily on family wealth.

I’m not trying to blame individuals for this, or make them feel bad. But as a society it seems that we’re selling ourselves short if we don’t enable all people to maximise their chances in life, and that for me means making state education better. A lot better. This is how we make society more equal, and probably better and more prosperous for all. 

Class action

The Department for Education released this week data on the destinations of key stage 4 and 5 school leavers in England, in 2012-13. The BBC picked up this story in relation to the proportion of schools which send few (or zero) pupils to Oxbridge, but there’s more to the data than that.

Included in the data was an analysis broken down by parliamentary constituency. I added to this data on the political party which currently holds the seats, and the resulting data set shows some interesting patterns.

Before the excitement of seeing the patterns, some caveats. Firstly, the data relate to England only: education is a devolved matter. Secondly, remember that this isn’t about the voting of the student themselves, or their families: it is simply the party which won in 2010 (or at a subsequent by-election) in the constituency in which schools are based. Thirdly, a few constituencies are omitted: either because they have an MP of a different stripe (Green, Respect, UKIP) or because there are no schools with Key Stage 5 leavers in them.

Just to show a modicum of thoroughness, the sample is 519 seats, of which 293 elected a Conservative MP; 184 a Labour MP and 42 a Liberal Democrat MP.

Who goes to university? School leavers in Labour seats are more likely to do so: 51.7% compared to 48.7% in Conservative seats and 46.6% in Lib Dem seats. But the population demographics are the other way round: the average Lib Dem seat saw 413 go to university, as compared to 362 in Conservative seats and 333 in Labour seats. Labour seats have fewer young people in key stage 5.

The data also tell us what sort of university they went to. DfE identify three groups here: the top third most selective, based on entry tariff (this is pretty much Russell Group plus old 1994 Group plus a few odd others); the Russell Group; and Oxbridge. Did the same pattern hold here? Hint: No!

20.1% of school leavers in English Conservative seats went to the top-third most selective universities. Slightly fewer (19.7%) from Lib Dem seats; and noticeably fewer – 15.5% - from Labour seats.

For Russell Group entry, Lib Dem constituencies nose ahead to first place: 14.6% of school leavers from Lib Dem constituencies go to a Russell Group university; 13.9% of school leavers from Conservative seats; and 11.5% of school leavers from Labour seats. 

And this patterns seems more extreme, when looking at Oxbridge. 1.4% of school leavers from Lib Dem constituencies went to Oxbridge; 1.2% from Conservative seats, and 0.8% from Labour seats.

What conclusions to draw? I think a couple of big points can be argued from the data. 

Firstly, in relation to HE policy and manifestoes: all MPs have constituents with offspring at university; and at all types of university, But for Labour MPs, the non-elite universities are more prominent; for Conservatives and (especially) Lib Dems, more elite universities are more of a concern. But for all MPs, most of the young people in their constituency who go to university go to non-elite universities.

This is the opposite of what one might expect from reading THES. University culture continues to be defined by the research elite. This is an important point for universities when lobbying MPs. The concerns of research intensive, elite, universities, will not be the most common issue raised about higher education by constituents.

Secondly, there’s a story to be read here about fair access. If the politics of the constituency MP can be taken as a proxy for economic and social wellbeing of an area (which is a defensible assumption), then it is clear that access to universities is not fair. And it isn’t only Oxbridge and the Russell Group that need to take action: the top third most selective don’t do too well here.

Food for thought, I think.

Room at the top?

The BBC reports today on NUS Scotland's call for more women on University governing bodies.  That's an important component of decision-making, but another angle is the make up of the executive team in a university.  I've been looking at the gender make-up of university executive teams - a day going through institutional websites.  I'll post more in due course (there's lots of data to look at) but here's a first finding:

For each UK institution, I identified the top team - usually identified as the group which meets weekly/fortnightly and advises the VC; or as the team within the Vice-Chancellor's office - and counted the number of men and women, including the VC/Principal.  I didn't differentiate between academic and professional service (eg Finance Director, Registrar) roles.

I couldn't identify the team for every institution.  There's 131 institutions represented in the data above; for the remaining 30 institutions I couldn't identify the top team from the university website.  The mean proportion of women on executive teams is just short of 1/3; there's not much difference between this and the national averages for English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish universities.

The data doesn't show equality - if there was no gender bias there'd be a normal distribution curve.  But equally it doesn't say anything about any given university, or the intentions of Vice-Chancellors.