Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Sunday, 14 February 2010

A* rejections.


In an article that details how some high achieving applicants are, this year, being rejected by all five of their choices it is claimed that this may be because they attend Private Schools :
In some cases, pupils predicted to get three A*s at A-level – along with a string of perfect GCSE results – are being turned down from all five of their choices.
In response ...
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, denied that private school pupils faced discrimination.
“Although admissions are rightly a matter for individual institutions, the Government is committed to ensuring that entry to university is determined by aptitude, potential and merit, not where a student was educated,” ...
Maybe they hadn't read this
Universities have been given the green light to vary the A-level grades expected from applicants depending on the schools they attend.
....

4 comments:

Witterings from Witney said...

Mrs. R,

They have created so many laws and have so many fake charities dictating with reports how the laws are to be interpreted, they have forgotten whose who and who has said what!

Hemp and Lamp Posts I say!

Mark Wadsworth said...

"... the Government is committed to ensuring that entry to university is determined by aptitude, potential and merit not where a student was educated”

I would interpret that to mean that kids from comprehensives with three A grades would be considered equal to kids from private schools with three A* grades.

Otherwise it would say "... the Government is committed to ensuring that entry to university is determined by your A-level grades", wouldn't it?

Richard said...

A disgrace. I am glad my two (state-school educated) are through all that. I would hate them to think that they only got there because they didn't go to a public school.

Mrs Rigby said...

@ Mark - what are A-levels for?

@ Richard - like many target-driven initiatives, nobody can be sure if they are 'successful' only because they're the right person to fill a quota, which can be unsettling.