10th July 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A recent study into the education of the UK’s ‘elite’ professions has shown that a high proportion attended independent schools and Oxford or Cambridge University. Reported on the BBC, the study raises the question of social mobility, and whether we are doing enough to ensure that the most influential jobs are accessible for everyone.
The survey looked at 5,000 people in top jobs and found that they were 5 times more likely to have been privately educated than the population on average. In the UK approximately 12% of people attend independent or grammar schools, and only 1% go to Oxbridge. However, roughly 57% of the people in elite jobs were privately educated.
24% of MPs attended Oxford or Cambridge, and 57% of the cabinet is made up of Oxbridge graduates. Overall 24% of the elite have been to Oxbridge, and the study compares that to the fact that only 19% of the working population have been to university at all.
Dame Martina Milburn, chairperson of the Social Mobility Commission, warns that these figures are worrying for a number of reasons. She says that the backgrounds of the rulers and those under their rule should not be so different, and that a small group of the ‘elite’ should not have such a loud voice in the running of the country.