Yes, let's reward those with a true hunger for higher education
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Version 0 of 1. Interesting to see the new Department for Education study urging universities to consider lowering entry requirements for state-school pupils. It argues that when state-educated pupils have the same grades as those educated at fee-paying schools, or grammars, on average they go on to attain better degrees, and are also less likely to drop out. Elsewhere, James Turner, from the Sutton Trust, highlighted the "achievement against the odds" factor – students who have to overcome obstacles to get to university are more likely to do well. What is this all about if not determination and that good old-fashioned concept, hunger? I don't think there's anything remotely romantic about state-school students having to fight against unfair odds to get into universities, a battle that these days incorporates everything from limited educational opportunities and lack of financial support to huge fees and loans, even when they manage to get to where they want to be. The whole process looks unfair, knackering and economically terrifying, and that's even when everything goes to plan. There seems nothing to get all unnecessary about there. Saying that, what this study suggests is that, given half a chance, many students from the fabled "wrong side of town" have what it takes to excel at university level, even to surpass some of their more privileged peers. It would appear that the determination required to keep hacking away, fighting through the thickets and briars of a disadvantaged start, the intelligence and strong will that keeps a body focused and on track, stays with them during the university years. Now excuse me while I do get a little unnecessary. I love the idea that the spark someone starts with isn't always doomed to get extinguished by the giant candle-snuffer called "life sucks". That it can somehow keep on burning steadily, defiantly, for as long as it takes. Could this be where the disadvantaged have a bizarre kind of advantage? For all the love and good intentions that may be around them, the support and opportunities too often aren't – they are not helped, guided, supported, praised, encouraged, positioned, micro-managed, moulded in the way their better-off peers may be (whether they ask for it or not). So they have no choice but to be self-starting, self-motivated, their own raw version of self-made, and that's even before they enter the GCSE exam hall, with their pencil cases and lucky gonks. Already they have refused to disappear through the chasm-sized cracks in the system, or to be cowed by the lack of outside interest in their future. Take this attitude into a university setting, where self-reliance is king, and it becomes akin to having a superpower. Getting bored, becoming demotivated, giving up, dropping out – to the disadvantaged, self-made university student, these options would be unthinkable. There's poignancy here, too. I'm reminded of the powerful scene in the film An Officer and a Gentleman, where Richard Gere's character, relentlessly baited by his training officer into giving up, ends up screaming: "I have nowhere else to go!" It seems likely that a distinct lack of other options greatly contributes to the staying power and resolve of the self-made student – the cold fact they too have "nowhere else to go". Still, this does not detract from the findings of this intriguing study – the thought that, once at university, such students tend to not only do well, but disproportionately so. Which in turn lends weight to the argument for helping more of them do likewise, by the simple act of lowering university requirements to a fair and realistic level. Far from being reverse discrimination, this would be anti-discrimination, ultimately benefiting all. If, along the way, hunger, drive and tenacity are rewarded over a culture of somewhat blase educational over-entitlement, who could possibly object to that? Don't let the bunny-huggers ruin Glastonbury There is a petition demanding that Metallica be taken off the line-up for this year's Glastonbury festival, because their frontman, James Hetfield, hunts bears and is due to narrate a documentary series on the subject. I'm an anti-hunting, tofu-munching bleeding heart myself, but I would still have to say that this seems a tad arbitrary. If you start to ban musicians on the grounds of animal welfare, where would it end? There would be no Ozzy Osbourne (the bat), no Led Zeppelin (some business with a red snapper probably best left vague in a family newspaper) or even Spinal Tap (does cruelty to drummers count?). You'd be left with the likes of McCartney, Morrissey and Moby running around the tents, and remember that we veggies have less energy than ordinary people. More seriously, what qualifies as animal cruelty? Arguably, hunting is no crueller than what goes on in slaughterhouses. Logically, you would have to ban anybody planning to sell or eat burgers, including members of the audience. Even for the self-governing festival subculture that is Glastonbury it seems bizarre to fixate on one aspect of animal abuse to the exclusion of all others. Nice try, Scout, now get dressed With respect, I don't feel overly concerned about the freeing of Scout Willis's nipples. Daughter of Bruce and Demi Moore, singer Willis wandered the streets of New York, topless, to protest about Instagram barring women's nipples, and because of the wider issue of men's greater freedom to have no top on. Using the hashtag "freethenipple", Willis talked a good game about "female empowerment". Nevertheless, this is what I'd term Californian feminism in action – lots of skin and raunch, a good dollop of self-publicity, perhaps the odd incense stick, but with the end effect somewhat missing the point. As the activist group Femen discovered, topless protests are tricky. Willis must realise that a lot of men would be only too happy to support the freedom of the female nipple in public spaces, especially if it had nothing to do with breastfeeding, and the protagonist happened to be young and attractive. A young female taking her top off is simply not a problem for many men. The relentless sexualisation of the female body means that the fight is to get women respected and heard with their clothes on, rather than the other way around. Nor is it the same for men to be topless – their chests are not secondary sexual characteristics, their nipples are biologically meaningless. A man with his top off is just a man with his top off. Conversely, a young woman topless could signify anything from a quasi-feminist protest to a porn spread. A topless female actually means something and therein lies a certain kind of twisted power if you wanted to think positively about it. It's an attitude that would certainly beat wandering around with your baps out, sounding dangerously close to feminism's answer to the Judean People's Front. |