THE WEEK News
Letters to T e Times
Leaders of the future It is announced in School Notices that Eton’s Sixth Form Awards go to Messrs Rishi Agrawal, Oliver Feng, Xiao Lin, Tanveer Sondh, Jacob Weir and Denis Zaboronsky. T is could alter the complexion of the 2040s Cabinet. Humphry Wakefi eld, London
We all rely on nepotism
While it is enjoyable to knock the Bullingdon Club membership, it’s not just the toff s who do it. I know hard-working local tradesmen who have unashamedly used their reputation for graft and their contacts to get their sons and daughters special treatment and into a good local business. So the next hard-working generation is created, with a powerful success formula involving talent, qualifi cations and a sense of pride in (and obligation to) one’s family. I suspect it’s a good bet for businesses that the off spring of diligent engineers make for good engineers. In my experience, it’s not the wealth, rather the proven work ethic of the parent that guarantees employers’ attention. After that, they’re in the same merit-based pool as everyone else. Tim Mitchell, Hinton, Somerset
University access: the politics of privilege Talking Points
“Access to university can never be fair, because life is not fair,” said Minette Marrin in T e Sunday Times. Of course, you can call any old college a university. But if by that word you mean “an institution of higher learning, designed for people capable of higher learning because of their higher-than-average intelligence, then, by defi nition, a great many people will be excluded”. Yet politicians seem ‘determined to ignore these truths’. Last week, for instance, the Government unveiled a startling new policy. Universities that charge fees above £6,000 will be forced to accept fi xed quotas of students from state schools and ethnic minorities. T ose that fail to meet the quota will lose the right to charge fees above this level. Deputy PM Nick Clegg even had the gall to blame “elite” institutions for stalling social mobility in Britain. T ere are well-founded fears that the
rocketing cost of a degree could “roll back the clock to the Edwardian era in
Stop drugging
exuberant children Libby Purves, T e Times
Beatings, forced labour, abandonment, opium in the soothing syrup – “where children are concerned, every era has its shame”, say Libby Purves. When future generations look back on ours, they will surely shudder at our “long-term drugging
www.fi rstelevenmagazine.co.uk
terms of restricted access”, said Jonathan Black in T e Guardian. Even now, the situation is dire: only 7% of pupils go to private schools, yet almost half the students at Oxbridge are privately educated. As of 2012, some universities will nearly triple their fees, up to a top level of £9,000 pa. T is will discourage poorer applicants, and drive the less well-off towards narrower vocational courses with a job at the end. But admissions professors have been doing their best to attract less privileged students for decades, said Dominic Lawson in T e Independent. T ey just cannot accept applicants who are incapable of coping with the academic demands. ‘It is no exaggeration to say that they fear they would have suicides on their hands.’ T e gap between private and public schools in the UK is indeed a “disgrace”. But the real scandal is not that universities are refusing to lower their standards, but that the state system is so poor – with 40% of 16-year- olds failing to achieve even a C in GCSE English and Maths.
of children who don’t fi t the system”. T e use of the stimulant drug Ritalin to treat “Attention Defi cit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD) has grown alarmingly in the UK: from 3,500 prescriptions in 1993, to 126,500 in 1998, to over 610,000 in 2009. It’s also moving down the age scale, with the drug now being fed to children at nursery school. T ere’s a case of a fi ve-year-old in the West Midlands on a double dose of Ritalin, “though his headteacher reckons
We all know why the coalition is doing this, said Simon Heff er in T e Daily Telegraph. It is a sop to the Lib Dems, who face electoral obliteration after “reneging on their fatuous promise” not to raise tuition fees. But it threatens to wreck our universities, in the same way that our state schools have already been wrecked. Let’s be clear what the issue is here, said T e Times. T e idea that universities could do more to recruit promising poorer pupils is not itself misguided. T e real concern is that the leverage the state now exercises over our universities - including the right to fi nethem £500,000 - threatens to “politicise” admissions. “It’s absolutely essential that the Government respects the autonomy of institutions and their decisions about merit.”
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he’s fi ne and the medication is ‘to help mum at home’”. T ere probably are rare cases where Ritalin is necessary, but most of the symptoms of ADHD – which include a short attention span, careless- ness, fi dgeting, impulsiveness – are barely distinguishable from normal childish exuberance. If adults want to dope them- selves up, that’s their business. “But small children, who can’t even read the label yet? How is that fair?”
Summer 2011 FirstEleven 11
Good week for: Literature, following research showing that teenagers who read books are signifi cantly more likely to end up in a professional or managerial job than those who don’t. The Oxford University study involved tracking 17,000 people born in 1970.
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