Oxford and PM in black student row

Oxford accuses PM of using inaccurate and misleading figures after he claims one black student was admitted last year David Cameron has clashed with Oxford University over its numbers of black students, after he said it was “disgraceful” that only one black student began studying at the university last year. Speaking at a PM Direct event in North Yorkshire, he said: “I saw figures the other day that showed that only one black person went to Oxford last year. I think that is disgraceful. We have got to do better than that.” But Oxford accused Cameron of quoting an “inaccurate and highly misleading” figure. Oxford’s admissions figures for 2009 show that just one “black Caribbean” candidate was accepted for undergraduate study, out of 27 black students in that year’s intake. Last autumn, seven black Caribbean candidates were accepted and there was a total of 20 black students in this year’s intake. The success rate for black candidates at Oxford remains lower than white candidates. In part, Oxford blames this on the fact that black candidates are more likely to apply for over-subscribed subjects, such as medicine. Figures obtained by the Labour MP David Lammy last year showed that more than 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses in 2009. One college had not admitted a black student in five years . An Oxford University spokeswoman said: “The figure quoted by the prime minister is incorrect and highly misleading – it only refers to UK undergraduates of black Caribbean origin for a single year of entry. “In that year a full 22% of Oxford’s total student population came from ethnic minority backgrounds.” Oxford’s data showed that the next largest ethnic group after white students was students with an Indian background, of whom 77 were admitted. A total of 2,653 students were accepted for undergraduate study in 2009, of whom 2,316 were defined as white. Cameron was taking part in a 40-minute question-and-answer session with employees of the tea and coffee merchants Taylors of Harrogate. He was asked about tuition fees and the effect they might have on deterring students from poorer homes. He said that universities had to keep to strict rules if they wanted to charge the maximum fees and argued that the country’s top institutions needed to attract students from poorer backgrounds. But he added that the top universities did not have a good record when it came to admitting students from state schools, saying the numbers had gone down in the past 20 years. “That is a terrible record,” he told the audience. This statement was also attacked by the Russell Group of leading universities, which said the proportion of state-educated pupils at its institutions had grown by 9% since 1997. Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, said: “This rate of growth exceeds the growth in the proportion of state school students across all UK universities, which was 8.6% in the same period.” However, 10 of the 16 English Russell Group universities are far below their benchmarks for state school access, the latest figures show. The benchmark reflects the proportion of pupils nationally who achieve the right entry qualifications. At Oxford, 54.3% of the undergraduate intake in 2009 went to state schools or colleges, compared with a benchmark of 70.2%. At Cambridge, 59.3% were state-educated, against a 70.4% benchmark. University of Oxford David Cameron Race issues Higher education Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 11, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.