Higher education
Premier league clubs do well on diversity – so why don』t universities?
Jonathan Wolff
Universities are encouraged to play it safe and instead of investing in talent, favour over-coached public school applicants
Tue 6 Feb 2018 07.00 GMT
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Just three years into my first lecturing job, I was given the position of departmental undergraduate tutor. I had to organise teaching assignments, deal with student problems and take on admissions. It seems inconceivable now that one person would be asked to do so much, but this was my life.
I was the only member of the department to read through the Ucca forms: similar to today’s Ucas forms except that, like an over-intrusive parent on a daughter’s first date, they demanded details of the father’s name and profession. Each year I pored over perhaps 600 forms and invited 120 or so candidates for interview. I would offer places to about half. I think I chose well, though I had better and worse days.
Eventually, we admitted that piling this workload on to one person was unfair, and spread interviews among about 10 members of staff, each of whom had five or six precious offers to make. I thought this sensible until one year I arrived in induction week and found myself surveying the new cohort. 「Why do they all look the same?」 So neatly dressed. So polite and well spoken. And so confident.
It was obvious what had happened. When one person is in charge they can do something that is much more difficult when responsibility is spread: aim at a diverse student body. They can make sure there are some mature students and some with unconventional qualifications. Even more important, they can ensure that the students come from a variety of racial and class backgrounds. But with only a handful of offers, the tendency is to make the same safe, obvious, choices as everyone else. Good A-levels, a firm handshake and a respectful manner go a long way.
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In any selection procedure, two types of mistakes are possible: to overlook the exceptionally talented or to recruit someone who will crash out, harming your retention rate and making your life miserable. My suspicion is that most systems are designed more to avoid calamity than to identify brilliance. Hence, unconscious bias will favour those who are more conventionally well qualified, as a proxy for reliability.
Playing safe is the enemy of diversity, and this is an area where, as David Lammy and others have pointed out, some of the best UK universities struggle. This week new figures showed that widening participation has stalled. In 2014 it was reported that the Russell Group universities are more than twice as likely to make an offer to a white applicant than a black one. Class and ethnic privilege are re-inscribed in the name of avoiding risk, even though the most over-coached public school boy can flunk out just like anyone else.
In some areas, missing out on exceptional talent is a serious problem, and investment is made in finding out about the people, rather than looking for markers of solid performance. A top Premier League team might experiment with 10 new signings, knowing only one or two will work out. Luckily, football teams are not assessed on their retention rate. Even so, they will do their homework, cultivating a long-term relationship, or keeping a player under observation for a year or two before making a move. They employ armies of scouts. And do pretty well on diversity.
This is what some of the most prestigious US universities do too, and like the Premier League they drive up the diversity and talent of those they recruit. UK universities must intensify their efforts. Unusual talent needs to be detected early and encouraged. Developing stronger relationships with schools will help.
Just as important, the sector and its regulators must examine the degree to which the climate of monitoring performance encourages conservatism. For example, the Teaching Excellence Framework takes a university’s dropout rate as a core metric. This is understandable, but concentrating on the avoidance of 「mistakes」 in admissions stifles risk. Currently, we may inch up the numbers of black and minority ethnic students by a percentage point or two a year. It is time for a much bolder push.
Jonathan Wolff is professor of public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University
Topics
Higher education
University administration
Inequality
Students
Oxbridge and elitism
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本文來源:https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/feb/06/premier-league-diversity-universities-admissions