Inquiry opened into universities' admission policy

Britain's leading independent schools have launched an investigation into whether universities are discriminating against their pupils.

The joint inquiry by the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) and the Girls' School Association (GSA) comes as the Government presses admissions tutors to widen participation in higher education.

Both Warwick and Bristol Universities have taken high-profile decisions to offer some places to youngsters from deprived areas on lower A-level grades. Leaders of the country's fee-paying schools say they believe the practice is growing. "We can see the way the wind is blowing," said a spokesman for the Independent Schools Council.

In Bristol's case, the average A-level score of the candidate's school is considered before a place is offered on its history course. Admissions staff say this has resulted in the number of students from state schools rising from 40 per cent to 70 per cent. In Warwick, the university is offering places at lower grades for up to 150 candidates from local schools with no tradition of sending pupils to higher education.

A statement by the HMC and GSA, which represent all the leading independent schools, said: "We support the principle of wider access to higher education but we are unshakeably opposed to the introduction of any procedures which would ultimately discriminate simply because of where they live or which school they go to.

"No school's pupils should be disadvantaged because they have been well taught at a good school whether independent or state," they said.

While acknowledging that previous surveys had shown that "practically no such discrimination is taking place at present", they said: "Nevertheless, pressures are clearly building up on universities, which may well eventually result in unfair discrimination."

The inquiry, which will involve individual questionnaires being sent to all schools asking about their candidates' experiences, is expected to be completed later this year and will be repeated annually as pressure grows on the Government to achieve its declared target of widening participation in higher education.

The Prime Minister has said that he wants to see at least 50 per cent of all students going to higher education by the end of the decade.

Margaret Hodge, the minister for Higher Education, has praised the Bristol initiative, saying other universities have been "woefully lacking" in encouraging wider participation.

Research in the United States shows that at Harvard University, which has a policy of sending its admissions staff into schools in deprived areas to recruit the best talent, youngsters from the poorest backgrounds often get better qualifications than those from the leafier suburbs.

Educationists in Britain believe that a similar discrimination policy would only work here if universities invested in recruiting extra admissions staff to seek out talented students in the same way.