The Oxbridge Alarm Bells Webinar – Our Review

The Oxbridge Alarm Bells Webinar – Our Review featured image
1 March 2023

Introduction to Oxbridge and Independent Schools

We were delighted to welcome so many Heads, Governors and Heads of Marketing to our latest webinar on the subject of Oxbridge and independent schools. Questions included ‘Positive Discrimination – Fact or Fallacy?’ and does Oxbridge still delivers the skills that employers are prioritising.  The webinar was set to be a lively one!

The Panel

The webinar was hosted by Duncan Murphy, our very own Director of Education.  We also welcomed three panellists, each expert in their field. Guy Holloway, founder and former Headmaster of Hampton Court House, is a regular speaker on educational leadership and a regular media commentator. Alicia Luba is the Consultancy Director at Dukes Education. She is an expert on Oxbridge Applications as well as Schools Placements and UK universities, having travelled around the world advising students and parents. Alicia has also written for The Telegraph and other publications. Sarah Williams is a Director at Edgecumbe Consulting, a business psychology consultancy focusing on leadership. They assess leader characteristics, behaviour, impact, and performance outcomes, to offer robust, personalised recommendations for development and action. Clients include Regents University London, Lloyds Bank, Hargreaves Lansdown, and Rolls Royce among others.

Discrimination – Fact or Fallacy

The webinar opened with arguably the most controversial question. Is there indeed positive discrimination within Oxbridge admissions? Guy pointed out that when we speak about Oxbridge we are not talking about one entity, rather a collection of colleges, all operating slightly differently.  He also made the point that what is important is to receive more applications from state schools.
Alicia continued with this theme, speaking of widening access and encouraging more students from non-fee paying schools to apply.  She highlighted the excellent work that Oxbridge is doing in this area. She acknowledged that this does mean of course that the picture is very different to that when parents and teachers were going through the admissions process.  There has been a big change in a short period of time. It is, in her view, a very positive step and all panellists agreed.

Offers in Context

This led to a question regarding lower offers given to state schools. To clarify this point, Alicia reminded attendees of the importance of context. Is that student a high-achieving applicant within their educational context? Have they over-achieved within their circumstances? She pointed to admissions teams looking at whether the applicant has been in receipt of free school meals, whether they were carers, whether they had an interrupted education etc. What was clear, she asserted, is that negative and reverse discrimination against independent schools is not happening.

An Employer’s View

The questioning then moved on to whether Oxbridge degrees were still seen as desirable by big employers. Sarah pointed out that talent acquisition and recruitment departments are now much more focused on assessing characteristics, skills, capabilities, behaviours and values and that education credentials, and even past experience, are not focused on as much as they once were. Critical thinking, learning agility, interpersonal skills and intrapersonal skills (resilience, ability to handle ambiguity and change) are big themes in graduate employment. She shared with the panel that she had put this question to the Head of Talent Acquisition at Hargreaves Lansdown. Her response was “we do not prioritise Oxbridge degrees and practical experience is just as valuable.”

Sarah also pointed out that diversity and inclusion is also important here as organisations are working harder than ever to widen the diversity of their pools of candidates and to remove barriers to entry to encourage a more diverse workforce. Oxford and Cambridge do however still feature very highly in the employability charts although Alicia felt this was most likely due to the skills they encourage through the admissions and learning style rather than an out-dated idea of prestige.

Alternatives

Conversation moved on to Oxbridge alternatives, including the Ivy League universities which are becoming far more popular. Discussion took place around the different styles in courses and teaching, and of course the element of cost! Alicia brought up that Oxbridge doesn’t value high achievements in areas such as music and sport to the same extent that the Ivy League does and that for this reason, more students look to study in the US instead. Guy commented that some Heads often attribute their fall in Oxbridge acceptance places to the fact that more of their students are choosing options overseas.

The Future

Sarah raised the issue of problems with the size of the UK workforce and pointed to a report published by The Economic Affairs Committee called ‘Where have all the workers gone?’ which demonstrated that economic inactivity (people not in work and not or unable to seek it) has risen considerably since the start of the pandemic and not fallen back as it has in other developed economies. Long-term sickness plays a role in this, but another factor is that more young people are going to university and more don’t work whilst they are at university.

Data also shows that we are heading towards what the CIPD economist called a ‘Great Retirement’ within the next 5-10 years which will be a further highly significant impact on the workforce. All of this suggests that employers will be even keener on alternative forms of education which get young people into the workforce faster – learning while they work. Asked whether this fit with the current model of Oxbridge or any other university for that matter, her view was that she suspected not.

All panellists ended with comments around the idea of what we want education to deliver (a subject on which we would need a whole separate seminar!), and Guy talked of the many different forms of success and the importance of putting the right child in the right environment.

You can watch the webinar on Oxbridge and Independent Schools in full below. If you would like to attend any future events, you can find them all on our events listing page here.

 

 

 

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