Hi Gabe
I am unable to enter the big debate on the points
raised about caste and affirmative action, by Jane
Rodrigues for lack of time now. However, regarding
your point below about renowned universities being
ordered to take more students from poor backgrounds,
I believe that this is a questionable interpretation
of the move by the Labour Government to diversify the
university intake in the UK.
In brief--and I have to rush this a bit, higher
education in the UK has always been for the better off
by the better off and the characteristics of the 'A'
level entry mode represent the perfect manifestation
of this fact. The Government's position (and with
which I agree) is that this particular exam mode that
is used for university entry, excludes much natural
talent that never makes it to university, let alone to
the high status ones. In this scenario, the UK as a
whole loses out in an increasingly globalised world
where human talent and its use is the key to national
prosperity.
In America, to some extent they have cracked this kind
of problem by having internationally available
selection schemes (eg SATS) to identify bright
students from anywhere and on the basis of high
scores, Harvard and Yale, among others, will
physically locate the potential talent and provide
educational opportunites at their institutions and
include programmes to compensate for where there are
initial academic shortfalls among such students. Not
withstanding the existence of the old boy/girl
network, this is a much fairer system than 'A' level
selection in the UK that, is excellent for some but
not the many, and is heavily biased towards the middle
classes who privately invest heavily in 'A' level exam
preparation without regard for the true intellectual
potential of candidates for university places. An
American scholar, Ralph Turner, a long time ago, had
written a brilliant short essay on the significant
difference between the American and UK university
systems, titled Sponsored and Contest Mobility
...which I am sure can be googled by anyone who may be
interested.
The UK government wants UK universities to do
something similar to what America does but this is not
that easy in a system steeped in privilege and
tradition. The traditional universites are inclined to
do what they have always done--work with the more
priviledged in society. Therefore, they are being
given more money if they seek the talent out there,
(the potential Shakespeares, Einsteins etc) who could
but don't make it because they are in the lower strata
of society and what they get in less good schools
cannot provide them the passage to university. The
Government has introduced a carrot and stick approach
so that those universites that do not diversify are
penalised through reduced grants. For those unfamiliar
with the UK system, there are no private universites
here and all courses/programs are paid for, validated
and monitored by Government agencies. Of course, time
and resources would raise the standard of the lower
class people at school level, but until then, more
innovative measures are needed to identify, and draw
into university level work, so much intellectual
talent around that is currently being simply wasted.
Cornel
Gabe Menezes wrote:
Incidentally, it happens on similar basis here in
the U.K. as well when renowned Universities were
ordered to take more students from poor back grounds.
The problem is, you can take the horse to the trough
but you can't make it drink.
