Universities and schools should ¡°ride the nerd wave¡± of role models such as Brian Cox and Mark Zuckerberg to encourage more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply for higher education.

This was among the suggestions made at a conference, organised by educational charity the Brilliant Club, that explored how the link between household income and admission to the UK¡¯s most selective universities could be broken.

Dan Abramson, headteacher of King¡¯s College London Mathematics School, told a panel session that the key issue was to provide children with more positive role models.

¡°We have the opportunity at the moment to ride the nerd wave,¡± he said. ¡°There are many characters out there who have made their reputations in a way that is utterly [through their] academic [background].¡±

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Mr Abramson highlighted Professor Cox, the University of Manchester physicist and television presenter, and Mr Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook who studied at Harvard University, as examples.

¡°That is inspiring to children, and they will understand that comes from the academic link,¡± Mr Abramson added.

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Michael Arthur, the president and provost of University College London, argued that it was important to get more pupils studying ¡°academic¡± subjects in school.

He described how he had been surprised to discover on a visit to his old comprehensive school in Essex that it had just one student studying history.

¡°It¡¯s not just about attainment ¨C it¡¯s about attainment of the right GCSEs and A levels in order to gain access to the country¡¯s research-intensive universities,¡± Professor Arthur said.

Ed Byrne, the principal of King¡¯s, said that some children were held back by the ¡°lack of aspiration¡± that their families had for them.

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Providing more diverse pathways into higher education and then between institutions would help young people to fulfil their potential, he suggested.

The conference, held at King¡¯s on 8 July, also heard a warning from Les Ebdon, the director of fair access to higher education, that changes to the school exam system could hamper mobility.

Many universities had used AS-level grades to assess the potential of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, he said, but fewer students are expected to gain these as in future they will be a stand-alone qualification that will not contribute towards an A level.

chris.havergal@tesglobal.com