NUS President Wes Streeting has said that universities must do more to attract students from state schools, in response to the report from the Sutton Trust, a leading educational charity.
“We agree with the Sutton Trust that many of our more ‘prestigious’ universities need to do much more outreach work with state school pupils," he says. "It is not good enough for the Russell Group to claim that schools should improve their own advice and guidance. The whole sector has a shared responsibility to address this problem.
“We also welcome the Sutton Trust’s recommendation that the university application system should be reformed. Post qualification applications would enable someone’s actual achievements to be taken into account, rather than one teacher’s predications.
“In addition to assessing applicants’ achievements, universities should also take into account their potential. Students from state schools consistently outperform those who went to independent schools and achieved the same A-level grades.”
The study analysed information on hundreds of thousands of students using information from UCAS and the National Pupil Database and is available in full on the Sutton Trust website.
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