By Gavin Mackintosh And Lucy Caulkett-
The Eye Of Media.Com has begun an examination into why students of colour and those who attended state schools are significantly less likely to receive first-class degrees at Cambridge University than their private school educated and white peers has began.
The matter was brought up for assessment by some Cambridge graduates have revisited an old topic that caused some problems.
Cambridge University first began the investigation into the findings after the university’s student paper Varsity, discovered the worrying trend last year , perceived to constitute a bias in the marking of teachers at the highly esteemed university.
However, the elite university has stalled in its investigation, with this publication being asked to intervene by white pupils more concerned about why state school pupils at the university produce less first class grades compared with their private school counterparts.
Weaker backgrounds could account for the differences.
One critical question is whether those falling under the concerned brackets are less capable in delivering the top grades due to other reasons besides bias, like them being more disadvantaged in their development process academically.
Cambridge University remains one of the Uks top universities and boasts high quality teachers and pupils in the country-the creme de la creme of students gain entrance to universities like Cambridge and Oxford University.
Private secondary schools generally produce the best students because of the high fees their parents invest for the education of their children. Many of such parents can also afford top quality private tutors to supplement an already high education.
This, on top of the fact that each classroom in private schools usually has no more than an average of six pupils, guarantees a high level of attention and commitment to each student, all of whom are generally committed to applying themselves to their work at home.
Besides the high fees paid by well to do parents with lofty aspirations for their children, many of such schools require prospective pupils to prepare and sit an entrance test to determine their suitability for the high pressured academic environment they are about to venture into.
All of these are general contributing factors to the disparity in standard between children from private and state schools.
However, there are a number of very good and distinguished state schools in the Uk which produce good students.
The demography of pupils who attend state schools are generally geographically determined , invariably predisposing serious students to unserious students.
This often means that children of uncommitted parents will be mixing with children of committed parents, and could in the process dilute the dedication of children from ambitious backgrounds to their education.
Pupils who attend state schools are also less likely to be avid readers compared with their private school counterpart, and less likely to have attended a very good prep primary school.
However, there is greater concern as to why there are fewer black people who graduate with first class degrees at Cambridge University.
The research was sparked after Cambridge’s student paper, Varsity, last year revealed a sizeable difference in the proportion of men and women that earn first-class honours in the final year of their Tripos exams at Cambridge.
Over the last ten years, the average proportion of male undergraduates that receive firsts was found to be just 33% compared with just 25% of women – an 8% gap.
The gendered gap widens in STEM subjects to above 10%. Last year, the gap was especially large, with 36.9% of men gaining firsts compared to only 23.8% of women – a 13% gap.
Some colleges, such as Trinity and Hughes Hall, have much bigger gender attainment gaps in STEM – 33% and 44% respectively. But in some colleges the trend is reversed: female undergraduates at Trinity Hall tended to get more firsts.
At Emmanuel the gender attainment gap was close to zero for both STEM and arts/humanities.
What is unknown are the inequality levels in exam results for individuals with other gender identities, who are excluded from these statistics; the University’s exam results database uses a binary system, with data only available for the attainment of ‘men’ and ‘women’.
The University told its student paper, Varsity that this is “to ensure individuals cannot be identified, owing to the small number of students in this category.”
Academic attainment gaps also exist along ethnic lines. At first glance, the data suggest that BAME and white students receiving firsts are represented in roughly similar proportions. In fact, they appear to swap every couple of years.
However, when you break down BAME students into subgroups, the attainment gap between white and Black students is sizable: 25.7% in arts and humanities and 24.1% in STEM.
This is hidden by the inclusion of other minority groups such as British Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis), who achieve more firsts than Black students but fewer than white students.
The gap is even larger between the subgroup of Black students who identify as British-Caribbean – they achieve 27.1% fewer firsts than their white peers in the arts and humanities and 32.9% fewer in STEM. In fact, zero Black or British-Caribbean students in STEM received firsts in their final exams last year.
Gaps between white students and students of other ethnicities not mentioned above were smaller. However, white students are consistently more likely to be awarded firsts than students of any other ethnicity.
State school students also do worse than students from independent schools in both the humanities and STEM, receiving 6.6% fewer firsts in arts and humanities, and 9.9% fewer in STEM subjects.
The explanation can be broad. White students and private school students at Cambridge may have stronger working ethics than many of their counterparts due to multiple reasons including background and upringing.
Some critics believe it could be preferential treatment by markers, but in an academic system where final grades are determined by more than one lecturer, final results are generally regarded to be authentic.
Some schools generate a stronger culture of all round development than others
The gender gap however is declining. Whether this is due to grade inflation, a steady increase in the performance of female students, social change – or a combination of these three – Cambridge is slowly becoming less unequal for women.
No such trend appears for state school students or BAME students for whom the attainment gap has been relatively stable across the past decade.
Cambridge university was contacted for comment.