The class ceiling

By Tony Sewell

To some, it smacked of hypocrisy that David Cameron – a white, privately educated graduate of Oxford University – should have attacked his alma mater on Monday for taking too many students like him, and too few from ethnic minorities. For others, it was a sign that the Prime Minister needed to brush up on his maths: when he said it was “disgraceful” that Oxford had taken only one black student in 2009/10, the university shot back that it had, in fact, taken 27.

The confusion arose because just one of those students was from a black Caribbean background – and to give Cameron his due, his attack has raised serious questions about why that is so. Indeed, however you count it, the number of disadvantaged students at our elite universities – particularly disadvantaged black students – is shockingly low. Oxford and Cambridge take more than 40 per cent of pupils from private schools, which educate only 7 per cent of students; all told, children receiving free school meals are 55 times less likely to go to Oxbridge than those from independent schools.

Does this, then, prove that these universities are fundamentally biased, or are there other problems lurking behind the numbers? Actually, there are very good reasons why African-Caribbean students are not getting in, and it has nothing to do with Oxford or Cambridge being unfair. The real issue is that this group, whose grandparents came here in the 1950s, have simply integrated into the wider poor working class, and fallen victim to exactly the same problems.

There are two aspects of this tragedy: expectations and aspirations. Many of our most talented black students attend state schools that have no tradition of sending their pupils to top universities: teachers and careers advisers will often deter students from applying because they don’t want them to be “disappointed” or feel “out of place”.

This liberal strangulation comes out of a politics that sees Oxford itself as an elite institution, with no relevance for black and working-class people, and is reinforced by some middle-class black people who claimed they had an awful time at Oxford and, in a burst of inverted snobbery, wouldn’t recommend the experience to others. They never tell us how many doors their degree opened, or how their networking gave them a real advantage in the world. Instead, they join the cause of fighting so-called institutional racism in schools – which simply means hating all things white and loving all things black.

This philosophy has become another means by which the potential of African-Caribbean students is stifled. Many of them do not have the self-confidence, or the family support, to declare that it is nonsense. The problem for these students is not some “cultural deficit”, where they are overdosed with too many white writers and European artworks. The problem is the opposite: the world presented to them by well-meaning teachers and community leaders is just too small and parochial. Education should include being exposed to, gaining understanding of and becoming confident in worlds other than your own.

The key stumbling block, however, is aspiration. The overwhelming reason for the low take-up of university places is that not enough black Caribbean students are getting the grades to be considered in the first place. Nationwide, around 50 per cent of students get five Cs and above at GCSE. Among black Caribbean students, it is closer to 35 per cent.

This is not a problem of race, but of class and caste. I run a charity called Generating Genius, which specifically targets very talented black boys from the inner city to become scientists and engineers. On our application forms, I always look at the section that asks for the name and address of the father. In the case of students from west Africa, nearly all have their fathers living at home. In the case of students from the Caribbean, 95 per cent will not.

Caribbean children are more likely than any other to come from a seriously disruptive family background – whereas their African cousins, blessed with stable families and the new arrival’s determination to build a better life, are shooting up the educational rankings. Just like the white working class, the Caribbean community has become mired in a culture of dependency, where you can still be rewarded for doing nothing. The safety net provided by our welfare state might be a source of pride, but it is all too often a killer of ambition.

The real tragedy here is the enormous waste of talent. The American writer Malcolm Gladwell has written about how genius is not so much about inherent ability, but being given the chance to fulfil your potential. I recently gave a talk to a group of 10-year-old girls at my local private school. They were not merely brimful of confidence – many could already name the Oxford colleges they hoped to study at, and the kinds of things that needed to go into their application.

These children were not innately brighter than those at the nearby comprehensive. They were simply on the right side of the great gulf between those who have that inside knowledge and those who do not. Many black children do not even know that they can cross the gap – and worse, many don’t even want to try. Their peer-group culture has come to hate success in the mainstream, associating this with “acting white” or being anti-masculine.

The work we have done at Generating Genius shows that we can buck this trend. The majority of the boys on the programme attend normal comprehensives in inner-city London: 90 per cent are from single-parent backgrounds, and 95 per cent will be the first in their family to go to university. After a five-year programme, lasting between 2005 and 2010, all of the students from our first intake received firm offers to study science at an elite university (including five from Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London), and 90 per cent are predicted to get A or A* grades in their science A-levels.

We are not a school. In fact, we do little that connects with the curriculum. Instead, we pick students up at the age of 11 and work with them right through their schooling. Our philosophy comes from the academies run in cricket and football that have produced Freddie Flintoff and David Beckham: they nurture talent by giving young people the framework and mindset to succeed, making sure they take pride in their intellectual achievements and receive the public recognition and rewards that they deserve.

This could be a model for the future – but sadly, much of the black community is still locked in a cycle of poor family structure, which means that students have inadequate discipline, a lack of encouragement from parents who have themselves failed within the education system, and a mindset that is trapped within a small comfort zone. Our boys wanted a way out of the straitjacket of their postcode – but to do that, they have had to fight their teachers’ low expectations, their parents’ own problems and a peer-group culture that values the street over the academy.

There is no “Pygmalion” model of social mobility, where we can wave a magic wand and transform the downtrodden masses into members of the respectable middle class. Nor should we subscribe to the liberal agenda that treats the children of the poor and ethnically disadvantaged as victims. Instead, we need to help them succeed within mainstream society. If there is a role for government and charities, it is to give them the tools to change their own lives – and clear the way for them to reach their potential.

Dr Tony Sewell is director of the charity Generating Genius