Bogus Use of Statistics to Discredit A-Levels as Index of Academic Potential

Civitas, 30 March 2010

The mantra on which New Labour came to power in 1997 was ‘Education, education, education’, chanted because of the known link between life chances and educational qualifications. Despite all subsequent efforts and the colossal sums expended, it has failed to close the gap in terms of university participation rate between young persons from the most-advantaged and the least-advantaged  backgrounds.

As was reported earlier this year:

‘Nearly one in five young people from the poorest homes now go to university… [but] a comparison with 15 years ago… reveals the overall gap [between them and the best- off young people who go to university]  has widened… to 38 oper cent.’

With an impending election, New Labour is desperate to put as good a spin on its track-record as possible. But with impending massive spending cuts all round, and a shortage of jobs, the demand for university places has never been higher.

Since, in any straight competition based purely on A-level grades, university applicants from higher income backgrounds would be bound to win a disproportionately large share of university places, in order for New Labour to conceal what an utter disaster its educational track-record has been, something was needed to discredit A levels as the principal metric on which Universities should rely in judging applicant eligibility.

Enter conveniently stage left, Steve Smith, Vice Chancellor of Exeter University and president of Universities UK. He has reportedly just announced that ‘research from Bristol University [has] justified offering places to candidates from poor schools whose A-level results are up to three grades lower than those who are better educated.’

Smith was quoted as having said:

‘The evidence is going my way. The research is absolutely clear now.’

According to press reports, the Bristol research on which Smith relied had found that ‘among 4,000 recent Bristol graduates… students who had attended poor schools far outperformed those with the same grades who had been better educated.’

Seemingly quite fortuitously, just announced research findings at University College Dublin would appear to support Smith’s contention. It was reported in the Times today that researchers from there had found that:

‘Teenagers from poor families who are accepted into university with lower grades are just as likely to graduate with good degrees as their fellow students.’

The account of the Irish research findings is ambiguous and might genuinely confirm Smith’s claim, were it true. But it will not, if it is guilty of the same verbal sleight of hand as Smith employed (or, at least, acquiesced in) when claiming that the Bristol research findings had shown that A level grades are not a fair and reliable index of academic potential, and therefore need discounting by the quality of the school at which they were obtained.

The reason Smith’s claim is a verbal sleight of hand is that the statistics on which he based it fail to take into consideration university drop-out rates before graduation. These are vastly higher among those university students who have entered from less advantaged social backgrounds, and, by extension, have  attended less highly performing schools.

If all the least academically able students have dropped out before any annual cohort of them are eligible to graduate, and if the least academically able ones tend to come from the least well-performing schools, it will follow that those who attended such schools and did  graduate could  do so with a better degree class than those of their peers who entered university with slightly higher A levels gained at better performing schools.

Contrary to what Smith claims, that statistical fact would not go any way to show that a university applicant with somewhat lower A levels grades than a second with higher grades gained at a better performing school would be likely to out-perform that second applicant at university, and hence merited preference were there only one university place between them.

The drop-out rate of university undergraduates in England and Wales is staggeringly high, and disproportionately so among those who come from the less well-performing schools.

Statistics disclosed by the Higher Education Statistics Agency in 2008 reveal that, whereas 14 per cent of students who began degrees in 2005/6 dropped out before graduating, the proportion of those dropping out who had been admitted to the least prestigious universities was vastly higher than that:

‘Half of students at Bolton University failed to complete degree course… [M]ore than four in 10 students failed to finish their degrees …[a]t Anglia Ruskin, London Metropolitan, London Southbank, Middlesex and Thames Valley.’

Those high drop out rates reportedly occurred despite: ‘universities recruiting students from poor backgrounds receiv[ing] more money and the Government pay[ing] special retention grants for extra tutoring and pastoral care.’

In order for Smith and Bristol to prove that, in terms of indicating academic potential, A level grades need discounting by the quality of school at which they were gained, what needs to be shown is that those who begin university with lower grades obtained from less well performing school are likely to outperform at university those starting out there with slightly better A level grades obtained from better performing schools.

No statistical data yet supplied or anywhere cited by anyone go anywhere near to showing that to be the case.

Until some such statistice are supplied, then voters are justifiably entitled to see in pronouncements like Smith’s only pre-electoral spin, and,  in the case of the just announced Irish research, fortuitous coincidence  or else, more worryingly, deliberate news management by vested interests.

Alternatively, it could just be special pleading by Smith. This is because universities receive more money per student for admitting applicants from poor backgrounds,  and they are not penalised if these students then drop out, ‘providing they continue to recruit even more youngsters to replace them.’