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Following an Oxford Professor’s controversial quote on state school students reading levels, working class young people across the nation are discussing the elitist culture still prominent in the UK’s top universities.
Russel group universities are the top twenty-four research universities in the UK.
The self-selected association includes globally renowned establishments such as the University of Oxford, University College London, University of Cambridge etc.
Seemingly the prestige of these universities is not selective to just global ratings, but also the inner culture within the establishments.
Recent outrage by state school students was fueled by an article from the Telegraph which featured Oxford Professor, Sir Jonathan Bate, arguing that state school students struggle to read.
Although, not much credit can be given to the UK for its literacy curriculum, with most people reaching reading age being 9 years old, the singling out of state school students is not only narrow mined but outrightly elitist.
Sir Jonathan Bate furthers his damaging view by blaming widening participation iniatives. He told BBC Radio 4’s today programme that ‘One factor is a kind of unintended consequence of the push in both elite British and American universities towards diversity and access.’
Bate’s statement about widening participation initiatives undermines efforts to make higher education more inclusive and accessible. By attributing an ‘unintended consequence’ to improving diversity, he implies that students from state schools and are somehow detrimental to the overall quality of higher education.
This perspective is inherently elitist, as it dismisses the value of diverse student bodies and frames inclusion as a negative rather than a positive outcome.
The 93% club, a national university society dedicated to making education more inclusive, comedically critiqued Bates argument in a recent instagram post.
It featured members of the society acting unfamiliar with how to use a book, emphasizing how ridiculous it is to believe that state school students can not read.
View this post on Instagram
As somebody who attends a top 10 global university and a Russell group, Univeristy College London, while also coming from a state school background, I have experienced the passive aggressive elitism that comes with being part of the 93%.
From law society presidents not accepting ‘povo’s’ to middle-class students obnoxiously asking for your parents’ work background, it is clear that Russell group universities are still not entirely accepting environments.
Although it is true that state school students had an education with less resources than their private school counterparts, penalizing them for a factor they can not control is not the answer.
Rather, I encourage establishments to welcome societies such as the 93% club, create access schemes and hold extra enrichment sessions on what may be ‘basic’ skills to some – like email etiquette and academic reading.
Diversity is a power tool to help build not break an establishment.
