So on this weeks broadcast of Any Questions, Osama Saeed of Al Jazeera suggested that the top two people from every school should go to Oxford or Cambridge, in his words to 'really put the cat among the pigeons'.
As far as I see it, this is another cheap attempt to jump on the anti-Oxbridge bandwagon. If we take it seriously I can see two possible results. Either we end up with students at Oxbridge who came from failing schools where their quality of education wasn't up to scratch and so feel out of their depth, depressed and end up failing. From personal experience, those are pretty common feelings among Oxbridge students and to throw someone in who isn't able to cope with the intense program wouldn't be a good idea. Or, we'll have people transferring their children to a failing school and have them tutored in order for them to get an easier place, we already have people transferring to state sixth form colleges from private schools because they mistakenly think that'll help them.
It's also really Oxbridge centered, would it also be fair to say that the top ten from each school should go to a Russel group university? We do have a problem with elitism and inequality in education, but that stems from inequality in schools where the difference is huge and less so at universities where we have many world renowned institutions where your only criteria for entry is showing you have the academic skills necessary.
Does this seem like a fair take on the matter? Or am I just biased being a Cambridge grad from a state school on the verge of being in special measures...