Universities and Employers need to act on social mobility
A leading academic has called for employers, universities and the government to do more to act on the UK's stagnating social mobility.
In an interview for an article in Forbes, Professor Marianne Fotaki has called for the government, universities and employers to do more to try and improve social mobility in the UK. Social mobility in the UK has seen stagnation in recent years with only 7% of the UK being privately schooled accounting for the majority of the top level professions.
The Forbes article highlighted the part that university education plays in the distinct gap growing in the UK, noting The Sutton Trust's findings that Russell Group universities are made up of less than 2% of those who received free school meals and around 30% of those who received a private education. The Sutton Trust also found that this was even worse in some professions, with 54% of CEOs, 54% of top journalists and 70% of judges in the High Courts.
Leading academic at the Warwick Business School and Professor of business ethics, Professor Marianne Fotaki, believes that education can be the way forward to amend this ill in the UK. Professor Fotaki said 'Education is the single factor that can help people from disadvantaged backgrounds move upwards. Access to education depends on the material and social resources of the family, in other words, the income of the family and the social networks and the ability of the family to mobilise those networks. That seems to disadvantage people from low-income families.'
Professor Fotaki continued 'Universities need to look at how they can widen their pool of people but also employers need to look at what they can do. You also need pro-active policies by government.'
The Warwick Business School academic argued there were distinct benefits for this. 'For employers, there are significant benefits of having a diverse, skilled workforce –it helps with new ideas and innovation. The professions such as accounting, law and finance are the main outputs of the UK economy and are a very important part of the UK economy and if the UK wants to be competitive in the world, then it has to do better.'
By James Howell
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