28th April 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
In a recent report on the BBC website, figures show that the number of state school pupils achieving university places at Oxbridge has increased, but is still below targets. Cambridge University took 59.3% of their new undergraduates from state schools, while for Oxford this figure was 54.7%.
The bodies that fund universities in the UK set targets for each university in terms of the number of students they accept from state schools, and the figure for both Oxford and Cambridge is just under 70%. The Higher Education Statistics Authority (Hesa) has recently released the figures, showing an increase from 57% and 53.4% for Cambridge and Oxford respectively in 2007-08. However, Hesa also pointed out that only 17% of students in UK attend privately funded schools, and so both universities appear to show a preference for accepting these students.
Spokespeople from both universities said that they are happy to have increased the proportion of state school students in their university, and that they are working towards increasing this number in the future to come closer to the targets set. It should be noted that Oxford and Cambridge have the highest academic standards in the country, and that the disproportionate number of state school students attending the institutions may better reflect the difference in standard between a private and state school education than a bias from either university towards private school students.