A new model for social mobility?

On the steps of Downing Street, Theresa May pledged to promote social mobility, to make Britain a country that works for everyone.

She pointed out that a white working-class boy is currently less likely than anyone else to go to university, and that the privately educated dominated the “top professions”.

Her cabinet has the highest proportion of state-educated ministers since Clement Attlee was prime minister in 1945.

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For decades now, the charity the Sutton Trust has been the standard-bearer for social mobility in Britain, developing schemes to help pupils from less advantaged backgrounds gain access to elite universities, and helping them into the professions.

The trust’s chief executive, Lee Elliot Major, said the Brexit vote underlines the need for a broader policy now, as it exposed a divided country.

Mr Elliot Major said: “The political vote that we saw was a direct consequence of social immobility.”

One of the Sutton Trust’s newest schemes, in partnership with the Fulbright Commission, helps teenagers to apply to American universities and win scholarships to pay the fees.

It is very competitive. There are 10 applicants for every place.

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Lee Elliot Major, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, urged the new government to consider how to extend social mobility to help more people.

He said; “We can pick talent and then catapult it into opportunity, as with our US programme where you have amazing young people who are going to the Ivy League and other leading universities.

“But what about those areas that are left behind? What about the children who don’t go on those programmes? And I think no-one at the moment has got the answer to that.”

Read the full article and Ben’s story here. Listen to her report on Today at 0’46” here.