Universities may favour pupils from poor schools

Universities are to be allowed to discriminate in favour of students from poorer backgrounds when offering places.

That could mean a sixth-former with top A-level grades from a successful school losing out to another with lower grades if they are achieved at a worse school.

Professor Steven Schwartz, who is chairing a government working group on widening access to higher education, hints broadly today that

this will be a key recommendation next month. His report to ministers will reopen the debate about social engineering in higher education.

But Professor Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Brunel University, warns admissions tutors against blanket discrimination in favour of students from poorer backgrounds or state schools, which he says could be illegal. He stresses that all decisions "should be based on an evaluation of each individual applicant".

Independent schools greeted the professor's words with suspicion, questioning whether universities which cannot interview all applicants - the majority - had the information to make sophisticated individual comparisons.

In a lecture to be delivered tonight, Professor Schwartz gives details of responses to his

working group's first report, published last year.

Nearly 80 per cent agreed that students' "life experiences" should be taken into account when making admissions decisions. He says: "It is possible that a candidate who struggled through a poor school and achieved a B grade at A-level may have just as much potential for higher education as an A-grade student who was better supported at a middle-class school.

"Uncovering such hidden talent is not social engineering, as some have alleged, it is simply an attempt to find the best students." But he adds: "I have no evidence that any university in the UK is actually using positive discrimination.

"I am not a lawyer but I suspect it would be illegal. Moreover, it would also be unfair. After all, not every state school student is disadvantaged and not every independent school student is advantaged."

Dr Philip Evans, head of Bedford School and chairman of the universities committee of the Headmasters' and Head --mistresses' Conference, welcomed Professor Schwartz's emphasis on treating applicants as individuals.

However, Dr Evans added that such assessment would raise practical difficulties for many universities.

He said: "Oxford and Cambridge can do it because they interview every candidate. But most universities can't."