Sort the mediocrity farms first

The former head of a low grade ex-polytechnic who is now in charge of OffToff  or whatever the Office of 'fair' access is called wants "top" universities to admit students based on arbitrary classifications, rather than merit.

I have suggested elsewhere that perhaps all these high grade state school pupils that are being failed might be given an extra chance with a pre-Uni year where they retake their A levels - so that admissions can be on merit. universities might like to use some of their expertise in teaching ( lol ) to help.

But the real scandal is that many schools specialise in farming mediocracy.

How do we know this ? Well look at the out cry over people getting a grade D instead of a grade C at GCSE. The impact of this on individuals is high - and I'm not diminish the issue, but no one was complaining about missing A's or B's. Why - because the school farm is in the business of producing grade C's as their rankings are measured on these.

On this basis its hardly surprising that mediocrity caries on into A levels and a failure of high potential candidates to gain the places they could have otherwise held down at top Universities. They instead have to go to sink institutions like the one the head of OffToff used to run.