University Admissions
Some schools, most notably independent schools, are very effective at encouraging their pupils to apply to university, helping them to choose appropriate subjects to study during sixth form at A-level (or for Pre-U, IB and other types of qualification), and providing them with an education that makes them well placed to impress at interview and in exams and also fosters the skills necessary to succeed once they’re at university.
Applications to university should be judged on their individual merits, and an undifferentiated approach to all pupils from any one type of school is unfair and unreliable: while considering a candidate’s educational context is understandable, falling back on quotas is discriminatory. Not all independent schools are the same and not all pupils at independent schools are the same, indeed, over 7% of pupils at ISC schools receive means-tested school bursaries and around a third receive some sort of financial assistance with their fees, for example school jobs. It would seem that quotas would undermine the university admission offices which would make them take people that satisfy a certain quota which would be done under a lot of pressure for the people with a lot of power, this is not right because at the moment it is done on the grounds of a candidates aptitude for the course. This runs counter to the notion of universities being schools of academic meritocracy and would force them into the murky world of social engineering. a policy like this one would not be good at school level because it would encourage parents to pull people out of some of the really good schools because they could apply and get in from a poorer performing school, it is much, much, easier to play the system by the looks of things. it would not work out at all when it comes to schools looking for greatness in education.
Widening access to universities is an important aim, but using the artificial device of quotas to deny places to good applicants simply because they went to good schools is not the solution.