Wride's numbers and evidence are familiar from what she has said before. What's interesting in the Telegraph context is her challenge to the Unis to desist from their usual game in Widening Participation (WP) of seeking out any bright students from diverse backgrounds. That's what a right-wing readership is comfortable with, because of the "opportunity" flavour.
It is one thing to seek to recruit ABB+ students from WP backgrounds; quite another to recognise that the greatest impact is achieved with those whom the system failed prior to A level study.
Inevitably, in this context, universities can see people from disadvantaged backgrounds as a drain on resources, needing additional 'remedial' support. They are, at best, raw material that needs to be shaped into more 'typical' 2.1 students.
And why is the Torygraph carrying such radical dialectic ? The comment spaces below the article are seething with rage and incomprehension.
Wride may be further ahead of the reform agenda than Telegraph readers think. The Obama college reforms are demanding that US Universities show evidence of impact in order to secure funding. That's to say, their success (and income) will be measured by how far they move students on from where they are when they enter the college. In American political language this gave a headline "A better bargain for the Middle Class" and it proved very popular across the whole political spectrum. I don't talk to many UK Provosts and vice-Provosts who see the job of Higher Education in these terms, except at the OU. They know that degree classifications still drive the funding and the system.
But when digital technology makes assessment about everything and not just the final score, an institution has easy visibility of the progress of each student. Some of the more advanced digital-focussed academies in the UK are (without the political statments) coming over to Wride's view. Nottingham Trent University, where I have had some dealings recently, comes to mind.
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