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University Education

The current impression that you would gain from reading one of the less reputable tabloids in recent times is that Universities are bastions of privilege, drunken behaviour and holiday camps for three years at the tax-payers expense. It is even possible that a few decades ago Universities might actually have merited a degree of criticism along those lines. The purpose of this piece is to examine the evidence to support or refute such allegations and to make a judgement as to just what the current status of the University is in our society today. Elitism is a term that is commonly banded about in the context of the university. We shall examine it's positive side as well as it's negative aspects.

History

Scholarship is certainly one of the oldest of professions. Most civilisations have had their intellectuals and scholars. Such people have always tended to congregate and pool their knowledge. The University and Library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt was testimony to the thirst and quest for knowledge that man appears to have had from the earliest times. His inception and development of the sciences of mathematics and astronomy are thought to date from about this time and place.

In those earliest times, arguably in the cradle of civilisation, the universities were undoubtedly elitist by definition. Few people did not have to work in order simply to survive. Admission to a university would certainly require you to be able to read and probably write, although we do know that there were professional scribes at the earliest universities who took dictation and transcribed pre-existing documents. The degree of literacy in each ancient civilisation is not accurately known, but it was generally the educated few who could read and write competently. By definition, these were the ones who might have even stood a chance of being considered for university. There is little doubt, even on the flimsy and sketchy evidence that we currently have, that even from the earliest times the academically elite were positively selected for university admission

We have a few glimpses into university life in the distant past. Salter (1) quotes that there were 1,500 students at Oxford university in 1300 and this had dropped to less than 1,000 in 1438. Each was required to have a bond (amount of money) guaranteed by their family in order to study. Academic elitism was clearly not the only criteria of entry, social elitism was clearly operative at this time in any event as only the comparatively rich could afford the bond required

The progress of a civilisation can be measured by the advancement in its ability to educate its people (2). We could consider the improvements in education throughout the centuries but it would not add a great deal to our current arguments. We need to ascertain the current status of the admissions policy of our universities in order to assess just how elitist they currently are.

Definition of terms - Different forms of elitism

Clearly we need to define our terms insofar as universities must, by definition, be elitist in an educational sense. In order to maximise their teaching potential to educate the next generation, they must clearly target their efforts and resources to that sector of the population which is likely to be the most responsive. Our current mechanism for assessing that potential is provided by the National Examination System - A-levels and to some extent other recognised examinations such as the International Baccalaureate. The system is therefore designed to be educationally elitist, a filter to allow the highest performing students - the academically elite - to be admitted onto the most prestigious courses.

The Paper, Admissions to Higher Education Review (3,3b) states that the four qualities most clearly linked to academic success at university level are Self-organised, ability to work independently, motivated to learn and interested in subject area There was one other subsidiary criterion which was an ability to work with others - so apart form academic excellence, the universities are also looking for other elite qualities as well - behavioural elitism. This process of decision making by the universities is, arguably, more scientific and objective than it was in the past. Clearly the examination process is more openly available to sections of society than it was even fifty years ago. Those who are able, by virtue of both their academic ability and behavioural traits, to achieve the necessary academic qualification for university entry who couldn't have even considered it in previous years.

The popular definition of elitism is more commonly seen as which group in society is given the opportunity to achieve those academic grades in the first place. This is commonly referred to as social elitism and will be clearly distinguished from academic elitism. Traditionally and historically in most of the 20th century the figures (4) support the view that the highest percentage of university places went to those educated in the Independent Sector. It could therefore be reasonably argued that the general system of education was socially elitist, with only the comparatively rich being able to get the best chances of obtaining university entry.

This view is supported by evidence given to the House of Commons Select Committee on Education and Employment - Fourth Report (5):

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) told the Sub-committee that students from poor backgrounds are still "badly under-represented in universities". Baroness Blackstone, the Minister for Higher Education, noted that currently approximately 80 per cent of the children of professional and managerial groups enter higher education, but only about 17 per cent of the children of lower socio-economic groups. She argued that this did not reflect the different abilities of the two groups, but a variety of environmental factors and different levels of opportunity and support.

In terms of state vs. Independent schools, taking all university courses across the UK. The admission rate for state school children has remained very constant at between 85 -87% over the last five years (6). If one looks further back across three decades, it has risen from a figure of less than 55%

Current measures to reduce social elitism

Another valuable set of source documents comes from the Admissions to Higher Education Review, a body set up at the request of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills under the chairmanship of Prof. Steven Schwartz, which was given the remit of conducting an independent review of the options which UK Institutions of Higher Education should consider when assessing the merits of applicants for their courses. (3)

It is argued that one mechanism for removing the bias for social elitism is to make the admissions process more transparent and accountable. In his initial Impact Assessment document, (3a) Prof. Schwartz addresses this point with thus:

The main objective of this recommendation is for full information to be made available to applicants to allow them to make informed choices when choosing where to apply to university or college, thus facilitating a good match between student and course.

Transparency would also benefit universities and colleges by ensuring a greater understanding of, and confidence in, their admissions decisions.

In order to achieve this he suggests that the prospectuses should include information such as the entry qualifications for the last year's cohort, the offer rates give to various ethnic and social groups, also admission rates by school type and sex. He also suggests that they should publish information such as the current drop-out rate and the subsequent employment rate for each course. UCAS currently state that 50% of their affiliated institutions already provide such information in any event although the stated aim is for 85% to do so by 2006 (3,4)

There is still the argument that, even with greater transparency of admission procedures there are still the financial implications of being able to take up a university place. Social elitism still exists if you consider economic criteria. There is no doubt that the provision of Local Authority Grants reduced the detrimental effects of poverty in the poorer sections of the potential student population. But the debate regarding student loans (7) is fierce and, some would say, politically motivated. The issues here are complex and contradictory. It is therefore not proposed to examine them in any detail other than to observe, from a subjective viewpoint, that the student loan may well be regarded by the body politic as an appropriate measure to ensure economic fairness and to promote the counter argument to economic elitism, but many prospective students will consider the fact that they will be saddled with a considerable debt at a time in their lives when they are arguably most in need of financial liquidity is actually a major disincentive to university entry.

Discussion: Is some form of elitism necessary?

In this respect, universities are becoming more egalitarian in terms of access to their facilities. The less advantaged, buy still academically able, are progressively more able to take advantage of what a university has to offer. This egalitarianism is spreading, not only across the economic divide but also across the ethnic divide as well. There is therefore little doubt, from the evidence that we have presented here, that universities are becoming less socially and economically elitist. This, however is not the whole story.

Academic elitism has always been at the heart of a university's reputation. Universities are the fertile breeding ground for research and development in many areas of our society. Scientific and technological progress is largely university based and, indeed has been throughout recorded history. It is therefore important not to be dismissive of some of the forms of elitism that are found in the Institution of University

If we accept Bronowski's view quoted earlier in this piece that one of the ways that the progress of a civilisation can be measured by the advancement in its ability to educate its people, then it is a rational and logical conclusion that civilisation is dependent on the abilities of it's educationally elite. Equally it follows that in order to maximise this progressive potential we, as a society, should maximise the opportunities for the educationally elite to take full advantage of the potential that a university education offers.

Our discussions regarding the reduction in the socially elite qualification status for university entry will clearly strengthen this argument. Perhaps this is the fundamental point to the discussion that there is considerable merit in universities being able to perpetuate their status and be considered ivory towers if that implies that the academically elite can continue their work of research and development. We, as a society, should perhaps encourage this for our own vicarious benefit. The same argument suggests that the ivory tower model is at it's most useful when all other sections of our society have the opportunity to aspire to reach it.

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