Oxford 'not able to take more deprived students'

Oxford University today warned it cannot take many more working-class students without compromising academic standards.

There is "a finite pool" of candidates who are qualified to fill Oxford's 3,100 undergraduate places every year and most of them already apply, the university said.

Pupils from private schools dominate A-grades in tough A-level subjects, such as science and languages, Oxford's admissions director Mike Nicholson said. But he stressed that Oxford was committed to helping pupils from deprived backgrounds set their sights on university to increase the number of candidates applying.

His remarks came amid a row over government demands for elite universities to do more to help students from poor backgrounds.

Speaking as he began a tour of party conferences to discuss the issue, Mr Nicholson told the Standard: "There are a lot of things we can do but there are also limitations.

"We are fairly clear that there is at the moment a finite pool that we can draw upon. We are doing a good job of getting the message out but even if 12,000 students apply with three As, we only have places for 3,000 of them.

"Our mission is to try to find the best students - the best being not just about academic record but the potential for future success at university."

Mr Nicholson said there were only about 28,000 teenagers who score three A-grades in their A-levels each year. Oxford receives applications from about 11,000 with a similar number again applying to Cambridge. This leaves only a few thousand who do not apply to either Oxford or Cambridge. Many will simply not be interested in an Oxbridge education or want to study courses such as dentistry that are not taught at either university, Mr Nicholson said.

"Are all students necessarily interested in the way we teach subjects and the tutorial system? That is what we can't measure," he said.

Independent schools teach more than a fifth of all sixth-formers and achieve a disproportionately high number of top grades, Mr Nicholson said.

About 40 per cent of candidates scoring A-grades in subjects such as modern languages and sciences are from independent schools. For classics the figure is even higher.

Mr Nicholson stressed that Oxford wanted to increase "the potential pool of candidates" applying and was engaged in a wide range of "outreach" activities.

He called for a joint effort to help working-class pupils score better grades from universities and the Department for Schools. Oxford's intervention followed a clash last week between Universities Secretary John Denham and Cambridge vice-chancellor Alison Richard.

Professor Richard criticised government "meddling" in university affairs and insisted the purpose of institutions such as Cambridge was to conduct research and provide an education, not to fulfil some "social justice" agenda.

Mr Denham hit back, condemning her remarks and demanding that "highly selective" colleges work harder to attract poor students.

Ministers have been trying for a decade to increase the number of working-class students who go to university, while Oxford and Cambridge have launched fundraising drives to secure their financial independence from Government.