Rapper Stormzy said on Thursday
he will fund two black British students to go to Cambridge
university through a scholarship, after criticism of some top UK
universities that their admissions processes do not do enough to
ensure diversity.
His move came as a record proportion of 18-year-olds in
England and Wales learned they will be heading to university
after receiving their A-level exam results.
"We are still under-represented at leading universities,"
Stormzy said in a statement. "I hope this scholarship serves as
a small reminder that if young black students wish to study at
one of the best universities in the world, then the opportunity
is yours for the taking."
The University of Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor
Stephen Toope, welcomed the scholarship but said the university
needed to do more.
"The studentships are a beacon for black students who might
otherwise have felt they could not come to Cambridge," he said
on the university website.
Thursday's exam results saw the percentage of students
receiving the top grades hit a six-year high.
In England, a record 27.9 percent of 18-year-olds had been
accepted to start at university, with the 26.3 percent in Wales
also a record, Britain's Universities and Colleges Admissions
Service (UCAS) said.
The total of 411,860 students set to start an undergraduate
course was 1 percent lower than last year, due to there being
fewer 18-year-olds in the population this year.
While Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM)
subjects continued to grow in popularity, the falling trend in
modern languages such as French and Spanish continued, with
Chinese bucking the trend and rising 8.6 percent.
UCAS said there was a 1 percent rise in European Union
students accepted to study at UK universities, 7 months before
Britain leaves the bloc, and a record number of international
students from outside the EU.
"The encouraging growth in international students choosing
to study in the UK is testament to the welcome of our world
class universities," Clare Marchant, UCAS Chief Executive, said
in a statement.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) said that the
proportion of students achieving grade A* or A was 26.4 percent,
the highest since 2012, though the 97.6 percent who achieved one
A*-E grade was down 0.3 percentage points.