Neill calls for secrecy to eradicate student bias

Students applying to universities should be able to keep their school or home address secret to combat prejudice, a candidate for the post of Oxford chancellor has told The Independent.

Lord Neill of Bladen, QC, proposes a "blind" admissions system which he claims would eradicate bias from the selection procedure and ensure the success of the brightest pupils. Such a move would also end the practice among some universities of marking down applicants from certain schools.

This week Bristol University faced a backlash from independent schools after it was alleged to have been positively discriminating in favour of working-class pupils.

Lord Neill, the former chairman of the committee on Standards in Public Life, said he rejected ministers' proposals for setting targets for the number of poorer students admitted to university. Instead he wants an anonymous admissions system in which a student's application would be assessed solely on the basis of an interview and a one-hour exam. "Admissions tutors should not know the school or the postal address," Lord Neill said. "I see nothing wrong with that idea. It's performance plus potential; that's what counts."

His proposal got a lukewarm welcome from the Association of University Teachers. The AUT assistant general secretary, Paul Cottrell, said last night: "Lord Neill's proposal would be naturally just, but wouldn't do enough to tackle social inequality because it wouldn't take into account the disadvantage poorer students will already have suffered."

Lord Neill believes some working-class students are put off Oxford by its Brideshead Revisited image and wants more to be done to dispel it. He has discussed some of his ideas with William Straw, president of the Oxford Students' Union and son of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.

Like William Straw, he rejected ministers' plans to introduce top-up fees which he said will not only add to student debts but will fail to raise sufficient funds to solve the funding crisis. Instead, Lord Neill, former chairman of the Bar and the Press Council, urged Oxford and Britain's other universities to follow the American model of funding which relies on former graduates to pay for graduates' tuition fees.

"We have to copy the American example and make it standard practice for the former members of the university to provide money for the future generations." He acknowledges this has already started in some Oxford colleges.

"There has to be an expectation that you will do it so it becomes part of the ethos," he added. "The colleges have begun it but there is still a long lead in time before there is an endowment fund in place."

He said the best time to ask Oxford's alumni for a contribution to an "endowment fund" is when they are in their fifties and sixties and more likely to make donations.

Lord Neill, 76, said it was important Oxford remained one of the world's greatest universities. He said: "Council and congregation, with the co-operation of the colleges, will determine the policies by which this is to be achieved. The role of the chancellor is to advise and assist whenever called on."

The chancellorship election begins next Friday and is being contested by Lord Neill, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the senior law lord, Chris Patten, the European commissioner for external relations, and the broadcaster and comedian Sandi Toksvig.