Industry News
Britain's top schools filling top universities
Posted on 20th September 2007
New research has found admissions to Britain's leading universities are dominated by a few, mostly fee-paying, schools.
The report by the Sutton Trust has monitored one million students' university destinations over the last five years and found 100 "elite schools" – less than three per cent of the total – accounted for one third of Oxbridge admissions.
It discovered more than 80 per cent of those schools were independent.
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust said the findings were "deeply worrying" as most of the population does not have access to the opportunities offered by the top-performing schools.
He called for independent schools to be opened up to youngsters from "non-privileged backgrounds" and said the country should learn lessons from high-performing schools.
Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Education and Skills Select Committee said: "There remains resistance to making the sort of institutional change necessary to make admissions to our top universities fairer."
The Sutton Trust was founded in 1997 and makes grants to projects offering educational opportunities for children from non-privileged backgrounds.