Don’t patronise poor and minority students – push them to thrive

I loved my course at university and have the good grades to prove it. I started my course in 1979, the days when those of us from poor and minority backgrounds should have considered ourselves the “privileged”. Given that only 2 per cent of us went to university, the country stuffed our pockets with fat grants, free tuition, and gave us a chance to escape our inner-city misery for beautiful countryside – and some tough exams.

I thought I was in heaven studying English, essentially getting paid to read my favourite poems and novels. I really felt sorry for the middle-class home students, whose parents were too rich for a grant and too hard-up to prevent their children from struggling. I remember playing the saint and giving one of my home-county friends a loan (with interest of course) so he didn’t starve.

So, it does seem strange that Oxford and Cambridge are being allowed to drop “traditional” exams in a bid to boost the grades of minority students. The evidence for this is based on the data that white, richer students are allocated a disproportionate number of firsts and upper seconds compared to students who are black and poor.

There is no doubt that the data is showing a link between socio-economic background and the allocation of upper-seconds. But the explanation is more complicated than the reflexive recourse to racism. There was a reason that I achieved a top degree, irrespective of my background. First, I got on well with my lecturers, staying behind after class to discuss the subject. This went to the point where I would go to their homes for dinner, be invited to parties and meet with their peers for informal drinks and chat. I think I gained access to the “informal curriculum”. Often the content of exams would be based around rewarding this extra knowledge, which went beyond the bog-standard basics of the course.

The other great source of this “informal curriculum” is joining clubs and societies, particularly those that are related to your subject. At university I was treasurer of the Chinese Society: I had no knowledge of finance, I didn’t speak Mandarin and I had no Chinese ancestry. But my participation allowed me to make friends and learn from students across campus.

If Oxford and Cambridge really wanted to make their institutions fairer, they could offer more “social” induction sessions – without patronising under-represented students in the process. They need to be told that you will get a better grade if you simply expose yourself to more knowledge.

Life is full of literal ups and downs. If you go back to my experience in the late seventies, being poor, black and going to a rubbish comprehensive ironically gave me the upper hand over my lower-middle-class peers. There is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution that won’t leave some group or another somehow disadvantaged.

There are clearly activist groups and lecturers who feel that black and poor young people are unable to stay in the fast lane of Oxbridge. But this is the wrong reason to pursue changes. If academics feel the closed-book method is simply outdated, it is their prerogative to modify it. After-all, many universities already use a range of course work and exams. Rather than framing changes as “inclusive”, reforms should be embraced as a way to make exams both more challenging and more engaging: students will have to do more than just crib notes and memorise formulae. Unluckily for them, it will mean having to go down the pub and, like me, simply ordering a blackcurrant and lemonade.