The Economist - 28 October 2017 by The Economist

Author:The Economist
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Economist
Published: 2017-10-26T22:25:20.493000+00:00

Dreaming spires

Two contrasting gaps in black students’ achievement

Black students are more likely than white ones to attend university, but less likely to do well once enrolled. What explains the gap?

Oct 26th 2017

TO A casual observer of the past week’s news, it might seem as though Britain’s university application process was designed to dissuade black students. The latest outbreak of the debate about access was prompted by a revelation by David Lammy, a Labour MP and former education minister, that ten out of 32 colleges at Oxford and six out of 29 at Cambridge did not admit a single black A-level pupil in 2015. Mr Lammy accused the universities of fostering “social apartheid”.

Despite enduring problems in gaining access to the most elite institutions, and evidence that some universities accept fewer black candidates than would be expected given their grades, black pupils are more likely than most to attend university. Some 57% of those classified as “black African” and 37% of those classified as “black Caribbean” go to university, compared with 33% of white pupils (see chart). “What goes on in a few colleges in Oxford is not representative of higher education as a whole,” notes Jacqueline Stevenson of Sheffield Hallam University.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.