Liz and Rishi’s shakeup of HE admissions

In the UK, Lizz Truss (PM candidate) has announced a policy where anyone with three 3 A*s is automatically invited to an interview at Oxbridge. Fair play. But there’s one major flaw.

One major flaw in Liz’s policy is that it doesn’t look like she asked Oxbridge if it was okay to tamper with its 1,000-year-old admissions process. Take a look at the policy.

Nathan Monk
Hello and welcome to another episode of Most Clicked. I’m your host Nathan from SMILE. I’m joined by my good friend Matt also from SMILE and Kyle from the Education Marketer. Kyle, in your newsletter, you have been talking about Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak and their shakeup/shakedown of HE and some interesting admissions policy chat.

Kyle Campbell
I know I mean, I’ll preface all this. I’m 100%, not a political expert. Okay, I tune in occasionally, I’m not a massive consumer of political news. My friend Josh Crawley is who gives me all the breakdown, we all know Josh, though don’t we? But yeah, there’s some stuff that’s come out recently and I just want to hilarious that these policies that I swear to God, they’re spun out in the middle of an interview, because that’s how the conversation twits. It astounds me that this happens, and we put up with it in 2022, I’m not gonna go any further down this route. Right. So yeah, there are a couple of policies that have been spun out. So Liz Truss came out with one around the admissions process. Now, I will say that I think her heart is in the right place with what she proposes. But I think the practicalities behind it are just insane, right? So Liz Truss has suggested that if anyone achieves a triple A star at a level, they should be automatically given an interview at Oxford, which I think Oxbridge, Cambridge or Oxford. I think this is great. However, there are a few things there for consideration. One, I think it assumes that everyone wants to go to Oxford and that they feel that it’s a good fit for them. And two, if that’s statistically like followed through, that’s around 18,000 interviews. So, you know, again, it’s it’s populism, isn’t it? It’s like, Oh, it sounds great. But actually, when you follow it through, it’s just a nightmare, you know, this has been spun out and she hasn’t even asked Oxbridge if they’re willing to change their admissions policy, which has been in place for 1000 years, you know, so again, just madness, and then you’ve got the other side of Rishi Sunak, he was focusing on the idea of education before so A Levels right, and reforming A Levels and that he was proposed that people continue to study Maths and English in some form until they’re 18. Now, again, like, who is this for, like, it’s certainly not for the students who just can’t stand those subjects and a desperate to drop them when they’re 16, which is probably most people or at least one of those subjects, I studied English at degree level, I love it. But I was very happy to drop maths at 16, even though I achieved a fairly okay result in it. So I just think there are big holes in these policies. And I don’t know where they come from or what they’re rooted in. And I think they’re deeply ideological, and I don’t think they benefit students in long term. So I feel like I’ve got a little bit on my high horse there, but I just feel that it’s out of touch. I feel they’re spun out with a very narrow view of what education should be. And we all know there’s no typical student, right? The students are so diverse. You can’t really do policies like this. They just don’t apply at the level that they need.

Nathan Monk
We’ve never really had much of a chance to be political. I guess we’ve never had a reason to be political. Yeah, it’s hard not to be when you see a story like this. I mean, this is soundbite politics, though, isn’t it? These are audio snippets, that, sadly, are probably not taken out of context. But they’re to appeal to specific demographics. I think they’re like, Oh, yes. Yeah. So they, so they bloody well should. Yeah, that sort of crap. really. But I’m with you. It was that when I found out that Liz Truss, had done it without any sort of form of consultation. She’s like, here’s a mental idea that I’ve got. Does she even have a way to enforce it like she, she can’t actually do with that can she?

Kyle Campbell
I don’t know. But I just, it’s like, and obviously, universities aren’t completely independent businesses, they’re regulated in certain areas, but I just find it crazy that who can dictate your admissions policy, that’s, it’s like going out to Birmingham University and going, you know, you, you’re gonna have to interview like 20,000 extra people have you got it this can’t happen. And I think it sounds great. And I think the opportunities be amazing. But again, it assumes that everyone views Oxbridge as that aspirational view of education should be and a lot of people don’t.

Nathan Monk
It surely sets an incredibly dangerous precedent.

Kyle Campbell
I think so.

Nathan Monk
Even if, like, regardless of whether you think it’s a good idea, or bad idea what represents that they could later go, you know, that thing we did, or we’re going to do this thing that slightly similar but even more evil, like, yeah, I don’t know. Again, we probably shouldn’t get political, but not that any of these bonkers chat surprises me with what’s gone on in that party for the past year.

Kyle Campbell
I know, it’s, it’s funny on the surface. And you know, eventually, like these policies, they get mixed up, and then you get a diluted version of them, then those big sweeping changes don’t happen. But like I say the HE landscape is just so varied, and there are no typical students. So you know, something like this is just either policy, you know.

Matt Lees
It feels short-sighted, doesn’t it? That was my first impression, you mentioned demographics Nath, and that policy has been focused on certain demographics. And the article that you shared, Kyle kind of alludes to that and says, It’s not recognising students who have perhaps come from, from worse off backgrounds and had to climb a mountain to get three B’s and actually have a better potential than those who have come from a privileged background. And yeah, they’ve just they’ve done what, what they should do, they’ve achieved the three A*.

Kyle Campbell
I’ve known students who have come into education with all the A’s, all the A, and they fallen on their face, because they can’t handle that new environment. And you’re right, I’ve seen people who get three C’s, three B’s, and they absolutely fly. And, you know, some universities in our education system that don’t even look at grades, right? There are a good few art colleges that don’t look at grades, it doesn’t matter if you got like 50 A, you know, or two D’s or whatever it is they they don’t look at it look at the portfolio, they look at other ways. And, you know, obviously, it’s way to that metric, aren’t they? But it varies.

Nathan Monk
We, Matt and I have been working on a project for the last two, or three months, maybe working with admissions a lot. And I love working in the sector because I always learn new things all the time. And learning about contextual admissions, and widening participation was a truly eye-opening experience. And it’s a remarkable thing that the sector does. And it’s just not taken into account. I know, I’m just kind of saying what you said. But I can’t believe that the contextual admissions but more so the widening participation angle is just not reflected in these things. is just nuts it’s absolutely nuts.

Kyle Campbell
It’s because they base it on their own experiences, though, isn’t it? And I think both candidates, I could be wrong here. But I think they both went to Oxford or Cambridge.

Nathan Monk
I think he went to Harvard didn’t he?

Kyle Campbell
Did he go to Harvard? Okay. So again, like elite institutions, and with a traditional style of education. And I mean, if you look at Oxford’s range of subjects and offers, it’s actually quite narrow, you know, there are better institutions to go to if you want to have a, you know, niche programme. Right. And, you know, whether or not it ranks it, what it is, and it’s, you know, it’s obviously a world-renowned university, but the programmes and offers are quite limited. So, yeah, and you’re right, contextual admissions are, you know, it’s an incredible way to get people into university, which take into so many different factors other than grades, and because they don’t experience it, they don’t know about it. And it’s just because it’s too complicated to discuss in that populous forum. It just doesn’t come up.

Nathan Monk
Well. And here I am thinking, what is the takeaway from this? Because I think it feels quite doom and gloom, right? It’s out of the frying pan into whatever it is. But I think, for me, the takeaway would be having reviewed a lot of universities’ websites in the last couple of months, I think it would do a lot of universities, well, to highlight contextual admissions, to be more transparent about admissions and to highlight the widening participation offer, to make that more widely understood. And I think so many people would benefit from that. And maybe if we all pay that a little bit more attention, when Liz Truss is browsing the website, maybe she’ll realise that there’s more to it.

Kyle Campbell
Or browse through the TikTok videos of her.

Nathan Monk
I feel like I’ve been harsh on Liz here. It’s not just Liz, it’s Rishi as well. He’s a plonker as well. So get that in. Both plonkers. Listen, thanks again, both. And one thing something brand new this time actually, first of all, thank you to all of our subscribers. We love you dearly. If you’ve enjoyed today’s content, drop us a like and subscribe. However. This is exhausting. It’s really like difficult to do this every week. We’ve been doing this for what 30 Something weeks now. No breaks, okay, maybe Christmas was a bit of a break whatever. We’re going to take a short break for a few weeks. We’re going to be back later this year with the same content. So hit that subscribe button so that you get notified when we’re back on air. We’re going to take a little bit of a summer hiatus. Thanks again. And until next time. See you soon.

Elliott Barnicle
Elliott Barnicle

Lead Designer