Why did we never think of it before? Some dramatic social reforms are so obvious - after some radical genius has expounded them - that one feels humbled to have been so blinkered for so long. A university vice-chancellor has proposed that universities should give preference to students with lower grades from poor-performing schools, over candidates with higher grades from good schools.
In other words, the more stupid pupils will be admitted to university, while the swots, nerds and clever dicks are excluded. It is so beautiful and so simple. For centuries we were in thrall to the blind presumption that universities should be the preserve of intelligent people. Now that assumption can clearly be seen for the irrational prejudice it is.
This is really quite exciting. Professor Steve (sic) Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University and the higher education adviser to the National Council for Educational Excellence (sic), set up by Gordon Brown, will present this ingenious plan to the Prime Minister next month. He will surely be knocking on an open door. Gordon Brown's intervention in l'affaire Laura Spence showed he has the right educational priorities.
Needless to say, the usual academic Luddites are denouncing this idea as "social engineering". No doubt those elitist fossils hanker for the days when effete youths clutching teddy bears swilled claret beneath dreaming spires. Chill, granddads! This is Brown's Britain. Steve's proposal is one of the most hearteningly inclusive we have heard in years. It will also remove unfair pressure on state school teachers to indoctrinate their pupils with useless knowledge.
Sadly, it comes too late for past generations of numbskulls who might have spent fulfilling years at universities if they had not been hijacked by Wittgenstein, Einstein and thousands of other elitists with more brains than social relevance.
There will, of course, be pitfalls. There is always the danger of bright pupils cheating in their examinations by deliberately getting answers wrong in order to gain admission to university. Objective tests will have to be devised to frustrate such devious behaviour. But that does not detract from the majesty of this concept, an opportunity for Britain once again to lead the world in social innovation by so radically redefining the concept of Educational Excellence. Bliss is it in this dawn...
Posted By: Gerald Warner at Jun 23, 2008 at 17:25:00
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