UK Edition
Grammar schools send more ethnic minority students to Cambridge than all comprehensives combined
Grammar schools are sending more black and minority ethnic (BME) students to Cambridge University than all the other state schools in the country combined, a new analysis reveals.
Children from the most disadvantaged 20 per cent of households are more than twice as likely to get a place at Oxford or Cambridge if they live in an area with grammar schools, according to the report.
The paper, published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), examines the impact of selective schooling on state educated pupils’ progression to top universities.
Iain Mansfield, a former senior civil servant who wrote the report, said the figures are a "shocking indictment" on the country's 1,849 comprehensive schools.
His analysis found that BME pupils are more than five times as likely to progress to Oxford or Cambridge if they live in a selective area rather than a non-selective area. Other data shows that more than a third (39 per cent) of pupils in grammar school areas progress to prestigious universities, compared to just 23 per cent in comprehensive areas.
The report analysed the background of Cambridge students who took up places at the university in the past three years and found that grammars sent 486 students to Cambridge over the three years, compared to 362 from comprehensives.
“Astonishingly, 163 grammar schools sent over 30 per cent more BME entrants to Cambridge than the nearly 2,000 non-selective schools combined,” it says.
“With more than three quarters of the country having no grammar schools, these figures represent a shocking indictment of the comprehensive system.”
The data is not available for Oxford as the university does not collect information on whether students went to selective schools, but the report says that the analysis is likely to be “broadly applicable” to both universities given the similar patterns of undergraduate intake.
Mr Mansfield describes how much of the previous social mobility research into grammar schools has focused on eligibility for free school meals (FSM) as a measure of disadvantage.
A report published last year by the campaign group Comprehensive Future claimed that just 4.5 per cent of grammar school places went to FSM children.
But the Hepi paper says that using the FSM measure obscures large differences within the remaining 85 per cent of the population. In fact, Mr Mansfield argues that grammar schools have a “socially diverse range of pupils”, with 45 per cent coming from families with income levels below the median income for families with children”.
Mr Mansfield said that the figures clearly undermine the claim that grammar schools are “just for the rich”, saying this “simply isn’t true”.
“A narrow focus on eligibility for Free School Meals has ignored many other measures of disadvantage, including ethnicity, parental education and broader income disparities,” he said.
"My report shows that, for many disadvantaged children, selective education makes a vital contribution to social mobility.”
However, Dr Lindsey Macmillan, reader in economics at University College London, and Dr Matt Dickson from Bath University, urge caution when comparing children from grammar school areas to their peers from areas with only non-selective secondaries.
“The areas that chose to keep grammar schools have specific characteristics – they are generally more affluent with a higher proportion of degree educated people,” the researchers said.
“These are precisely the characteristics that support access to elite universities, and so we would naturally expect to see more pupils in those regions attending [them].”
Nick Hillman, director of Hepi, warned that the debate on grammar schools has become “very one sided”.
“Researchers line up to condemn them for inhibiting social mobility, and the schools do not perform well on every single measure,” he said. “But the full evidence is more nuanced and shows some pupils benefit a great deal.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Selective schools are some of the highest performing schools in the country and an important part of our diverse education system. Almost all of them are rated Good or Outstanding, and they are popular with parents.
“That is why we continue to support their expansion, through the Selective School Expansion Fund, where they meet the high bar we have set for working to increase the admission of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.”