Don’t fixate on getting working class children to Oxbridge, social mobility tsar to say

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Working class students should celebrate making “smaller steps” in life rather than fixating on going to Oxford or Cambridge, the government’s social mobility tsar will say. “We want to move away from the notion that social mobility should just be about the ‘long’ upward mobility from the bottom to the top - the person who is born into a family in social housing and becomes a banker or CEO,” she will say at the Policy Exchange thinktank. open image in gallery Katharine Birbalsingh, chair of the Social Mobility Commission Ms Birbalsingh – who read philosophy and modern languages at the University of Oxford – will discuss how more opportunities can be created outside the London area, so that not everyone feels they have to move to the southeast to get a good job. “This means looking at how to improve opportunities for those at the bottom – not just by making elite pathways for the few – but by thinking about those who would otherwise be left behind.” Ms Birbalsingh, who is the chair of the government’s Social Mobility Commission, will ask attendants to the event: “What more should be done about those at the very bottom – particularly those with low levels of basic literacy and numeracy – who cannot therefore take advantage of higher learning and are unable to access higher paid work?” She will also argue against claims that social mobility is getting worse.