David Cameron was wrong to blame top universities for a lack of diversity as the problem partly lies with state schools being unable to prepare their students for Oxbridge, headteachers have said.

Last weekend, the prime minister accused his alma mater, Oxford University, of “not doing enough to attract talent from across our country”, pointing out that 27 black students out of a total of 2,500 went to Oxford in 2014.

John Weeks, headmaster of the London Academy of Excellence (LAE) in Stratford, east London, said the criticism of Oxford and Cambridge was unfair as they had done “huge amounts in terms of outreach” for students from diverse and deprived backgrounds.

He said the problem was simply that there were not enough applications to top universities from pupils from deprived and black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, and that post-16 provision in some areas was not strong enough.

As university vice chancellors attended a hastily convened meeting at No 10 on Monday to discuss the prime minister’s concerns about diversity, headteachers highlighted the disadvantage faced by state schools with little or no history of sending students to Oxbridge.



Last month, eight LAE students, who have all grown up in the deprived borough of Newham, were offered places to study at Oxbridge, leading to the selective sixth form free school being known as the Eton of the East End.



While delighted with their success, Weeks readily acknowledged that much of it was due to the college’s partnerships with leading public schools including Eton and Brighton college who helped set up the academy three years ago.

“Where we’ve been very lucky is we’ve been able to tap into the experience of our independent school partners who have hundreds of years of experience of getting their children into Oxford and Cambridge.”

Reiss Akhtar, 17, who has a place to study English literature at Cambridge, benefitted from that – he had four weeks of coaching to support his application and sat two mock interviews at fee paying schools; one at Eton and one at Brighton college.

Jack Wands, meanwhile, was the first ever pupil at St Andrew’s Roman Catholic school in Glasgow to get an offer from either Oxford or Cambridge.

Headmaster Gerry Lyons said the school had never thought of putting any of its students in for Oxbridge as its focus had been to increase numbers going into higher education, which has increased 11% over the past three years.

It was Jack, “an ordinary working-class boy” from Garthamlock, who decided he wanted to try for Oxford after visiting the university during an internship organised by the Social Mobility Foundation.

Lyons and his team helped with the application but he also received extra help from St Aloysius, a partner private school, with a good record of successful Oxbridge applications. Now he’s been offered a place to study philosophy, politics and economics.



“There should be more young people from state schools going on to universities like Oxford and Cambridge,” said Lyons. “How we help them to do that is pretty patchy. I know they run summer schools but it doesn’t feel very systemic.

“I would prefer not to go to St Aloysius for help. There should be much more systemic support for young people so that any school can help a young person get into Oxbridge, not one that happens to have a link to a private school.”

After the Downing Street meeting, which was attended by the vice chancellors of both Oxford and Cambridge among others, the business secretary Sajid Javid, said: “Universities have made good progress but we can’t stand still.



“More needs to be done to improve access and outcomes for disadvantaged and [BAME] students. That’s why we’ve announced plans for a new transparency duty to shine a spotlight on where progress is being made and where institutions could do much more.”

Critics lashed out at government hypocrisy, accusing ministers of calling for greater diversity at universities while introducing policies that could produce the opposite effect such as the trebling of tuition fees and the removal of maintenance grants for lower income students.

Kate Green,the shadow minister for women and equalities, said that while an increasing number of students from BAME backgrounds are studying at university, too many are still denied the chance to study at some of the top universities. “We support calls for universities to do more to attract and enrolstudents from a diverse range of backgrounds,” Green said, “but those from low income families will be deterred by the removal of maintenance grants by the Tories which could leave students facing high levels of debt on graduation.

“Once again, we see the Tory government stating high aims on equality while at the same time implementing policies which only serve to embed and entrench inequality.”

Dalia Gebrial, a member of Rhodes Must Fall Oxford – the student group that has been campaigning for the removal of the statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes from Oxford’s Oriel college, said the fact that the prime minister had recognised the disparity in higher education should be welcomed.

She did, however, add that Cameron’s words were “blunted by the fact that the government has put in policies that make it difficult for working class people who are disproportionately people of colour.

“It’s not about squeezing people of colour into inhospitable places but addressing the broader structural issues hanging over such institutions,” Gebrial said. “David Cameron’s words don’t mean anything when the government’s policies are doing the opposite.”

On Monday, the Rhodes Must Fall group condemned the college for deciding to keep its statue of Rhodes, saying it had been influenced by a “dictatorship” of donors.