Marking the government's homework

All the universities have or will submit critiques of the government's plans to dismantle the higher education sector: The Dark Place has already done so, and it was pretty good. Oxford and Cambridge Universities released their own submissions today, and it's not nice, particularly as virtually every government minister is a graduate of one of these institutions (which doesn't say much for the quality of education there). If I were the Tory Party's parents, I'd be phoning a private tutor and taking away the Playstation:

Cambridge’s council warns that ministers risk damaging the global reputation of Britain’s universities and says it is “dismayed” that the White Paper has no “overall vision and strategy” for the sector. It warns that higher education “should not be reduced to a utilitarian equation of cost and personal financial benefit” and also says it is “regrettable” that the government’s approach to reform “has been a cause of alienation rather than one of inclusion”. 

Oxford’s submission… warns that the White Paper proposals “will bring turbulence to the higher education sector which will be felt for many years” and “demonstrate little thought about the links between research and teaching”. “Students are partners in shaping their learning, not consumers of a narrowly defined educational product,” it states. Oxford also raises concerns that “implementation of the model of ‘consumer choice’…will actually hamper attempts to widen access, hindering rather than enhancing social mobility”.

Meanwhile:

Minister David Willetts held at least 12 meetings with for-profit education firms before publishing his plans for university reform for England. Meetings with representatives from two firms accused of recruitment or public loan fraud in the US were among them. 

This is how to phrase a put-down

The British Bankers' Association (not a popular club at the moment) didn't like a Cambridge student pointing out vulnerabilities in the Chip and Pin system, and tried to censor his thesis (according to their spokesmen every week, there aren't any problems with it).

His university responded absolutely magnificently.

Second, you seem to think that we might censor a student's thesis, which is lawful and already in the public domain, simply because a powerful interest finds it inconvenient. This shows a deep misconception of what universities are and how we work. Cambridge is the University of Erasmus, of Newton, and of Darwin; censoring writings that offend the powerful is offensive to our deepest values. 

I have authorised the thesis to be issued as a Computer Laboratory Technical Report. This will make it easier for people to find and to cite, and will ensure that its presence on our web site is permanent....

You complain that our work may undermine public confidence in the payments system. What will support public confidence in the payments system is evidence that the banks are frank and honest in admitting its weaknesses when they are exposed, and diligent in effecting the necessary remedies. Your letter shows that, instead, your member banks do their lamentable best to deprecate the work of those outside their cosy club, and indeed to censor it.

Black? Get back.

No doubt Oxford and Cambridge (and some of my readers) will provide complex arguments about why this isn't so bad as it appears, but I'm shocked.

more than 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses last year and one Oxford college has not admitted a single black student in five years.

The university's admissions data confirms that only one black Briton of Caribbean descent was accepted for undergraduate study at Oxford last year.

Let's just reflect on that for a minute. Are we really going to accept that across all classes and educational backgrounds, there was only one British-Caribbean student worthy of a place at Oxford?

Figures revealed in requests made under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act by the Labour MP David Lammy also show that Oxford's social profile is 89% upper- and middle-class, while 87.6% of the Cambridge student body is drawn from the top three socioeconomic groups. The average for British universities is 64.5%, according to the admissions body Ucas.

The FoI data also shows that of more than 1,500 academic and lab staff at Cambridge, none are black. Thirty-four are of British Asian origin.

One Oxford college, Merton, has admitted no black students in five years – and just three in the last decade. Eleven Oxford colleges and 10 Cambridge colleges made no offers to black students for the academic year beginning autumn 2009.

No one from Knowsley, Sandwell and Merthyr Tydfil has got to Cambridge in seven years. In the last five years, pupils from Richmond upon Thames have received almost the same number of offers from Oxford as the whole of Scotland. 

The 'élite' universities are the training grounds for power: your chance of success in any field, but especially politics and government, is immensely boosted by attending these places, with their élite social networks. Denying access to the poor, regional and minority ethnic applicant reinforces the closed nature of the ruling class. Obviously, I'd rather make all universities as good and respected, but in the meantime, we need to smash down the doors. These minority applicants aren't asking for relaxed entrance requirements: they're the best. Take exam results out of the equation and we're left with a very crude and unpleasant explanation for why they're rejected. 

Such a tourist…

All my photos from Newmarket and the British Association of Canadian Studies are here. Click on each picture for  larger version.

This is how David Cameron understands the working classes

Chandelier, Trinity College Cambridge Chapel

Tennyson, Trinity College Cambridge Chapel

Tiny flower in the pavement, Trinity College Cambridge

Cambridge, side street

Church wall, Cambridge

? flowers, churchyard, Cambridge

Spring is bursting out all over

Cambridge looks stunning in spring. I'm not a sucker for chocolate box architecture, but I did wander around enviously. 50% of Cambridge students go to fee-paying schools, despite being only 7% of the school population - then they get subsidised even further as a reward for buying advantage. I wonder how my students would fare with one-to-one tutorials, book funds, spacious rooms, cheap food and even holiday funds. Yes, Cambridge students can apply to have their holidays ('preferably mountainous') paid for them.

All my photos from Newmarket and the British Association of Canadian Studies are here. Click on each picture for a larger version.

Murray Edwards College is truly beautiful: clean 50s/60s colonnades and domes.

Cottage envy

Newmarket Station

Cambridge Spring

I stayed at my sister-in-law's house the night before my Cambridge Conference. It's near Newmarket. Thatch, ancient bowed beams, the best bath I've ever seen… going back to The Dark Place was hard. Very hard.

All my photos from Newmarket and the British Association of Canadian Studies are here. Click on each picture for a larger version.

Sounds fair…

My first university was overwhelmingly white - but Bangor University is in North Wales, which has virtually no ethnic minorities other than English. Still there was a fairly substantial non-white cohort. My current employer, Wolverhampton Uni, must have one of the most diverse student populations in the country, both from British-born students and international ones - it's one of the institution's strengths, though I'm never quite sure how well the different groups mix.

In any case, we're much more welcoming than certain universities - these figures are so shocking that it can't simply be written off as a problem with school-level education of black children:

Across all years and subjects, Oxford's student population of 20,000 has around 380 students from a black background, including mixed race, of whom just 175 out of 11,900 are undergraduates.

Cambridge is no better. Perhaps it's partly explained by the greater poverty in minority groups: 40% of Cambridge and Oxford students went to private schools, despite only 7% of children attending such schools. Mmmm…egalitarian