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Leading Article: Clever George

Thursday 25 June 2009 00:00 BST
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Congratulations to George Weller, 17, who has become the first young person to be offered a place at Cambridge University under a partnership where students from Kingsford, an 11 to 16 comprehensive in Newham, east London, are given scholarships to study A-levels at fee- paying Brighton College.

Let us hope he is not the last. Richard Cairns, Brighton College's head, says that, if George Weller had gone to a sixth-form college, his teachers would would have been unlikely to suggest Oxbridge as not many of them would have gone to either. That is a problem that must be tackled before the state sector can hope to be better represented at the ancient universities.

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