On Friday night I attended a dinner for some Australian alumni of The University of Oxford, a group of which, I should note, that I’m not a member. The former prime minister Bob Hawke gave the welcome address and when recalling his time in England as a Rhodes Scholar between 1953 and 1956 he said what he loved most was the acceptance. “Everyone was judged on merits and merits alone,” Hawke told the room. “A lack of political and racial intolerance was refreshing.”
As I tweeted that remark I realised that, in some ways, the sentiment might defy belief. As an educational institution Oxford University is among the world’s best. On the surface it is dripping with elitism; an expensive sandstone university prodigious for fostering future leaders in politics, business and the arts. Because of that, power and privilege are somewhat synonymous with Oxford so the idea of it being a meritocracy might strike some people as odd. But as Hawke discovered it is.
While it is true that some students at Oxford have attended Britain’s elite public schools or come from wealthy families, no amount of money can actually buy a student a place there. Like at its rival, Cambridge, the admission process for undergraduate students at Oxford comprises famously rigorous entrance exams and equally formidable interviews. It means, once admitted, the playing field is flat and the currency that matters most is intellect. It’s also worth noting that government funding and student loans in the United Kingdom make tertiary education financially accessible to the majority of students. An environment which rendered race, politics and wealth unimportant was enormously refreshing to an Australian in the fifties like Bob Hawke.
Not to mention powerful. Another guest on Friday night talked about an African student from Zambia meeting a white Afrikaans South African at Oxford in the sixties. The South African was a product of his upbringing and on first shaking the African man’s hand he said “Ah my government doesn’t think it’s good idea to meet people like you.” Away from the rigidities of apartheid, a friendship developed and by the time the South African had finished his study he felt unable to live in his home country. He had learned, firsthand, that he could not accept racial segregation and wasn’t willing to live in a nation that was ruled on that basis.
It is one anecdote, among thousands, that demonstrates the power of education in encouraging critical thought, challenging assumptions, inspiring leaders and creating change. As I took my seat in the dining room on Friday night I couldn’t ignore the privilege around me. It looked like any other old boys style get together like Marina Go described last week, filled with successful, mostly middle-aged, white men. When discussing this afterwards with Sally Loane, the MC of the evening, she made a very good point. Bob Hawke, now, might be viewed as incredibly privileged but that is because of his education not the other way around. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he wasn’t offered a Rhodes Scholarship because of any wealth or power. He earned it on his own merits and he did something with it.
And I suspect the same could probably be said for many of the men in the room on Friday night and every other person who has had the opportunity to immerse themselves in a meritocracy where ideas are celebrated. Not everyone who arrives at Oxford is necessarily privileged to start out with but every single person who leaves, is. Not because of any power or social standing but because of the education they take with them. Aside from the degree they take home they are enormously privileged to have lived, even briefly, unencumbered by prejudice and there is utility in that for all of us.
It is the reason the 16 young graduates we have profiled over the past few weeks are so inspiring. They are ambitious university students who are filled with optimism about what they can achieve in their chosen fields. Armed with a tertiary education they are well placed to achieve fantastic things because education is, after all, the best kind of power.