A young people’s charity has claimed that all academic staff in universities need to go on a special training course so that they can understand poor students.
Reclaim, a British non-profit based in Manchester, made the demand in a recent publication entitled “Educating All”.
The document asserts that the cultural gulf between university professors and their working-class charges is so large that only professional intervention can bridge it.
It said the training was necessary to help staff be “tolerant” and to remove “social, ethnic and political barriers” between them and implement “cultural awareness”.
The report does little to address the irony that its plan to ensure working-class students are embraced by universities would necessitate marking them out as a distinct group and treating them differently to everybody else.
Another of its seven recommendations includes demands for a “working class diversity officer” to be appointed by every students union.
As previously reported by Heat Street, several universities and college have taken to recruiting such staff already.
Some are part-time roles fulfilled by students – others are separate, salaried positions funded by a levy on the student body.
They would join the ranks of thousands of women’s officers, equality officers, LGBT reps, black students’ officers and so on who populate British campuses already.
Other recommendations include giving students from poor backgrounds extra money so they can undertake low-paid or unpaid internships.
