In one of my local cafes, which may or may not be a million miles away from where a certain little Prince and Princess go to school, you will often find a sprinkling of well-heeled mums obsessing over their children’s education.
It’s fascinating to listen in – I often think that I’m overhearing conversations between people who are on different planets to me.
They’re usually fretting about entrance exams or which private school their children will go on to.
I kid you not, I heard one mum say her son wouldn’t go to £13,925-a-term private school in Harrow “if we paid him”.
At the top of most of their worries is getting into Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Until now the odds have been mostly stacked in their favour – just eight independent schools, according to social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, accounted for more Oxbridge places than almost 3,000 UK state schools put together.
But that is slowly changing and after years of justified criticism for being elitist, these institutions are doing more to attract students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Office for Students yesterday announced universities have now made equality commitments which mean there will be 6,500 more students from the most disadvantaged areas at our top institutions by 2025.
About time too. Successive prime ministers have talked about wanting to make Britain more of a meritocracy, but social mobility in Britain is in decline. When it comes to education it’s working-class white boys and young people from the North who are being left behind.
But not everyone is pleased with these changes.
Mike Buchanan, who represents private school heads, says: “Care is needed in starting to actively discriminate against individual young people on the basis of the class they were born into.”
Is he serious? What does Buchanan think has been happening for, like, ever!
Talk of affirmative action and quotas always has critics reaching for the smelling salts.
But if action isn’t taken, the status quo remains, and we perpetuate a system where we’re governed by people who are out of touch and have no idea of the struggles many people face.
And we all know where that leads.
