Oxford offers highest number of places to state school students in 40 years

It is 'welcome progress' but there is 'still much work to do'

Earlier this year it was revealed Oxford had the lowest proportion of entrants from the poorest social classes of any UK university, at just 10 per cent (Chris Ratcliffe/Getty)

Oxford University will take in a higher proportion of state school educated pupils this year than it has for the past four decades.

Six in 10 of the applicants offered a place at the university this year will have attended state school, marking a rise of nearly four per cent of state-educated entrants compared with last year.

The remaining four in 10 places will still go to the estimated seven per cent of pupils in the UK who are privately educated.

Earlier this year it was revealed Oxford had the lowest proportion of entrants from the poorest social classes of any UK university, at just 10 per cent.

The university has since made conscious efforts to "target the students and schools that are most under-represented", increasing investment on outreach projects to encourage poorer people to apply, including a summer school for state-educated pupils.

Dr Samina Khan, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach at Oxford University, said the figures show the initiatives are working.

She said: “We take our commitment to diversifying Oxford incredibly seriously – our work in recent years especially through initiatives like our UNIQ summer school for state school students has been about targeting the students and schools that are most under-represented.

“These figures, along with our continuing progress towards our Access Agreement targets for disadvantaged groups of students, are a positive indication that all our work is bearing fruit.

But many have expressed that more needs to be done to achieve fair access to higher education and bridge the gap between the most and least advantaged young people.

Professor Les Ebdon, Director of Fair Access to Higher Education, told The Independent: “These figures represent welcome progress, and show the value of the work universities are doing to reach out to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"However there is still much work to do, particularly at those universities with the highest entrance requirements, where the gap between the most and least advantaged is especially wide.

"Closing this gap, and ensuring that talent – not background – is the key to entering higher education, is crucial to achieving a more socially mobile society.”

Former Oxford University student Dhruti Shah tweeted that the rise in state-educated people being offered places at Oxford was "good news" but that "there needs to be more support".

Meanwhile Sam Freedam, Executive Director at Teach First, said the figures were "encouraging", but questioned how many of the state school entrants come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In February it was revealed seven of the 24 universities in the more selective Russell Group - including Oxford and Cambridge - had seen a drop in the percentage of poor students attending the UK's leading universities.