The country's top universities have been called on to come clean about an unofficial list or lists of "banned" A-level subjects that may have prevented tens of thousands of state school pupils getting on to degree courses.
Teachers suspect the Russell Group of universities – which includes Oxford and Cambridge – of rejecting outright pupils who take A-level subjects that appear on the unpublished lists.
The lists are said to contain subjects such as law, art and design, business studies, drama and theatre studies – non-traditional A-level subjects predominantly offered by comprehensives, rather than private schools.
The London School of Economics is thought to be the only top university to publish its own list of "non-preferred" subjects. Cambridge University did so until last year.
Teachers accused universities of putting comprehensive pupils at a disadvantage by refusing to publish their lists. Some claimed the lists were a filter that enabled the most prestigious universities to accept more private school pupils than state-educated ones.
Already private school pupils dominate entry to top universities and could do so more in future. A-level results published on Thursday showed that selective private schools continue to outperform comprehensives in terms of A and A* grades.
Private school pupils are three times more likely to score the highest grade than comprehensive pupils, achieving 30% of the total number of A* grades when their pupils accounted for just 14% of entries. Comprehensive schools achieve 30% of the A* grades on 43% of entries.
But even the brightest state school pupils, with a string of As and A*s, stand little chance of a place at a top university this year if they have taken one or more of the A-level subjects on the unofficial lists, the teachers said.
These students will join this year's unprecedented scramble for university places. An estimated 180,000 students are predicted to be turned away from every degree course starting this autumn because of record numbers of applications.
John Bangs, former head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said he strongly suspected that there was a single unofficial list of banned subjects. "The list is built on the assumption that these subjects are easier than others and not academic enough," he said. "This is just another sign of the Russell Group using a filter to stop people they don't want from getting into their universities. They have no concern about fairness. They should be far more transparent. If they have this list, let them publish it and show us the evidence that these subjects are easier". The Guardian
