Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1040
- 1059)
WEDNESDAY 19 JULY 2000
PROFESSOR SIR
KENNETH CALMAN,
DR GEOFFREY
COPLAND PROFESSOR
DIANA GREEN
AND MR
WILLIAM LOCKE
1040. By their teachers.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Thank you. This is not a university
issue. If that is the case, this is not a university issue.
1041. However, it is something that is said
about Durham in many places.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Durham can say all it likes;
if school teachers make that statement we cannot do anything about
it. We would like to make sure that people will not do that, but
if that is what the teachers say—
1042. They do.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Then that is not an issue. The
University of Durham would like to change that.
1043. So you are putting it on the record?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Absolutely. That is a crazy statement
to make.
Helen Jones
1044. You would be happy with the introduction
of what UCAS call "blind application forms" where universities
will not know what other institutions students are applying to?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Yes. There are no problems about
that. The issue is to try and get the best students in. That is
the point I have made and that is the key principle.
1045. Is it not the case that a lot of independent
schools, perhaps, have a better hope of finding their way and
helping their students through this process because they have
links with many of the older universities? What is the CVCP doing
to encourage their constituent universities to develop those same
kinds of links with state schools, not just through summer schools
but through heads of colleges and academics actually sitting on
governing bodies of state schools?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) That happens all the time.
(Professor Green) It has been happening for years.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) I do not think that is an issue,
that is happening all the time.
(Professor Green) Could I pick up something Kenneth
said in response to your question? In terms of, really, whether
or not you were looking for a single qualification that everybody
would then recognise because it would make it much more simple,
this comes back to the fact that we are not simply talking about
young A-level entrants. We must never forget that one of the big
problems that we have in dealing with the whole access issue is
that actually if we were looking at non-traditional students you
have to have a much more complicated admissions system, which
it is very difficult to be transparent about. Ultimately, if the
decision is whether or not the student is able to cope with the
educational experience and to succeed, then elements of judgment
come into that, and it is very difficult to find objective ways
of quantifying that. That is an inevitable consequence of widening
participation. We have to recognise that and we have to find—and
that is what we are trying to do—ways of making that transparent
and actually not having these kinds of covert systems that are
operating at the same time.
1046. I am sure the Members of the Committee
would accept what you say about that. It would be helpful to us,
I think, considering the evidence you have given, if any of you
have available for your own universities the breakdown of applicants
between state and independent schools in different subjects. Do
you have that sort of information?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) We have all of that. That is
the point I made earlier, that classics—which we happen
to teach in Durham—is still taught mainly in the independent
sector; therefore, most of our students in classics come from
there. We can do that for all subjects.
1047. I understand that. Does that not actually
raise a question which, perhaps, the universities ought to be
considering, that there are some subjects, like that, that, perhaps,
you ought to be teaching from scratch, as you do with certain
other, modern, foreign languages, that are no longer taught widely?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) For some who come in without
that, the answer is yes, to that, but the predominant group come
in from a particular direction.
Helen Jones: It would be helpful to us to have
that information.
Dr Harris
1048. I have a couple of questions that are
around and about, on a number of topics. Do you know what the
relative success rates are between the state sector and the independent
sector in your universities? Is that published?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Yes. We can provide this all
for you, if you wish.
1049. We got the impression that it was not
published. For example, Oxford and Cambridge have come under scrutiny
and there have been academic papers written about the relative
success rate which, certainly, in 1997 in Oxford, is higher, per
application. Recent data suggests that that has narrowed now.
Let us say there was another university where they did better
in terms of overall numbers of state sector but the success rates
were half for state sector versus independent sector; they just
managed to get more in by getting more applications. That would
suggest there was more of an issue, arguably, at the admissions
process. Do you have any idea, off the top of your heads, what
those are? Are they published, because we got the impression they
were not published.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) I have all of those here. I am
not going to go through them all but they are all there.
1050. The global figure?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) It is in terms of state school,
independent school, the number of applications as a percentage
of admission, A-level points, non-A-level points.
1051. I will be very specific. You do not have
to answer me now, but what is the percentage of applicants from
the state sector you admit, or make offers to, and what is the
percentage of applicants from the independent sector that you
make offers to?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) They fit almost exactly between
the number of applicants, or percentage of applicants. The state
sector get about the same number of admissions, as opposed to
offers because some people do not come, as we would from the independent
sector. As you pointed out earlier, we have 30 to 40 per cent
from the independent sector but the rest from the state sector.
1052. I hope we can clarify those issues. If
you had the ability to get the addresses or names and schools
of good performing people from less well-represented backgrounds
in schools, would you put the funds in to direct mail them, as
I understand some Ivy League colleges do in the United States,
on the basis of SAT scores?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) We already do this. We hear from
a lot of schools of particularly bright pupils and we are very
keen to encourage—again, not necessarily into Durham but
we are prepared to support and do quite a lot with that individual
over two summers, and they are now in the higher education sector.
If there are schools that traditionally do not send many into
the higher education sector and they have got particularly good
pupils, then we will do everything possible to support that.
1053. Have you had evidence that for any given
number of A-levels or any given points score, people from the
state sector with those A-levels have got better degrees classes,
generally, than people from the independent sector? Do you think
it is valid to set lower tariffs equivalent to that differential
for people from the state sector, which will be seen, I suppose,
as positive action, affirmative action, to take into account the
fact that any given A-level score suggests greater potential given
their background?
(Professor Copland) This is where we get into the
area where we are being criticised for not being transparent.
We are looking for potential. We are looking to find the students
who are going to benefit most from the restricted number of places
we have. Remember, we cannot accept everybody. In looking at the
potential for the individual, we look not just at the A-level
result but the GCSE result, the background, and what that school
can offer. That is part of the concern we have about the transition,
I have to say, to the new post-16 qualifications. We need to find
out the background, what the schools themselves can offer in this
broadened curriculum, to make sure we are making well-found judgments
on the performance of individuals, because they may be coming
from all different backgrounds where schools can offer a better
or lesser range of choice.
1054. What I am trying to ask is, if you offer
3 Bs to everyone for law, say—I do not know—and you
might say "We will offer 3 Bs to this person because they
are from a state sector when we might not otherwise", and
you would take that into account. Would it worry you if you found
that on that basis the people from the state sector, who did get
in and got those 3 Bs, were doing better on average, such that
you should be trying to get 2 Bs and 1 C people in from the state
sector, who would do better than 3 B people from the independent
sector? Have you analysed that, because you have the data in your
colleges? If you did find that, would you consider that approach?
(Professor Copland) Can I say I would not want to
draw a distinction between the independent sector and the state
sector. You are actually talking about discrimination between
individual schools, whether they be in the state sector or from
independent schools. I think that distinction between the two
is, in a sense, slightly unhelpful here. Yes, we will look at
the performance of individuals. We know the schools, we know a
lot about the majority of the schools and colleges (let us not
forget that colleges are very important in admissions to my university),
we know a lot about the texture of the background they are coming
from, we know about the sort of performance we are getting from
students we have recruited from there, and those things will be
taken into account. No, I cannot sit here and say, definitely,
yes, we would admit from A rather than B, because you have to
take all the circumstances into account.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) What we have decided to do is
that our standard offers for a particular subject for state schools
in particular will be acceptable. In most instances the offer
which is given is higher than the published offer, though we will
be taking in those who meet that offer. Overall we have a 2 per
cent drop-out rate in Durham, and it does not matter where people
come from we will get them through and they will do well out of
it. That is what universities are about. They are a remarkably
efficient system at getting people through.
Mr St Aubyn
1055. May I apologise that a conflicting meeting
prevented my coming earlier. I will read the evidence very carefully.
Dr Copland, could I start with you by asking if you think that
a good 2:1 degree from Westminster University is of equal merit
with a similar degree from the quality universities we see present
here today?
(Professor Copland) The answer is yes.
1056. Would you both agree with that?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Yes. I think it is a non-question,
actually.
1057. So what we are talking about here, really,
is not which universities are students are going to but whether
they have access to the higher education system. Is that the key
focus, do you think?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) I think it is.
1058. What would you say to the mature student
I met on a visit some of us made to Cambridge a couple of weeks
ago, who compared her experience there as someone who had gained
access to Cambridge with that of her friend who is at East Anglia
University and felt that the range and depth of teaching and attention
she was getting was on a far different scale to that available
to her friend?
(Sir Kenneth Calman) Because we have a differentiated
higher education system. That is part of what we have been discussing
earlier.
Chairman: Was the Cambridge woman saying she
had a better or worse experience?
Mr St Aubyn
1059. She was feeling she had more attention
and more support and a wider curriculum in the course of study
she was on.
(Sir Kenneth Calman) That is not the same as asking
if 2:1s are equivalent, of course. It is a different question.
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