Is elitism in the Armed Forces a real issue for state school students?

Elite universities in the United Kingdom have been under heavy criticism for their excessive admission of private school students in recent years. Two centuries after the British Armed Forces were criticised for having too many officers educated at private schools, over half of the Army’s latest intake of officer cadets were privately educated. A Freedom of Information request found that 49% of those who entered Sandhurst Military Academy, a notoriously elitist institution in the army, in January came from fee-paying schools. This is despite only 6.5% of the total number of students in the UK being educated at independent schools.

This is a remarkably high percentage of privately educated students on the pathway to becoming highly ranked officers. The strikingly high percentage creates an intensifying problem for social mobility. 

Suddenly, students from state schools who want to go into the army become low-ranking privates, whereas students from independent schools are fast-tracked into officer training, earning more because they have attended Sandhurst, the only current route to officership. An example comes from one of the UK’s most prestigious -and expensive – private schools, Eton College who had a full-time guard’s officer to assist students into Sandhurst that was paid for by the Army until 2016. It is clear that the relationship between the Armed Forces and elite schools have long been established. 

Educational background has no bearing on a person’s ability to perform well as an officer

In contrast, the Navy saw 64% of officer cadets entering the Royal Navy College at Dartmouth attending state schools. The Royal Air Force, on the other hand, noted that it does not collate information on educational background. Nonetheless, the very top jobs in the Navy and RAF have recently been given to men educated in state schools. The last army Chief of General Staff to have been educated at a state school was during the 1950s. If the Navy and RAF can promote social mobility and allow those at the top to be more representative of the education received by the majority of the country, why can the Army not follow suit? 

This strikes at the core of the issue. Educational background has no bearing on a person’s ability to perform well as an officer. The Army has stated that it was trying to increase outreach to those in state education, but the Sutton Trust highlighted that those at the top of the armed forces were seven times more likely to go to private schools. This clearly shows that social mobility programmes like the Combined Cadet Forces (CCF) are failing in their aims to get more state school pupils to the top positions in the Army.

The very purpose of CCF was to allow state school pupils to pursue a pathway into the military. However, a Freedom of Information Request revealed there are as many CCF units in private schools as there are in state schools. For a time, the number and influence of these in private schools outweighed the very establishments that they were designed for. 

Once more, this is a problem not just in the Armed Forces, as Britain’s most elite universities still over-recruit from private schools

So why does this matter? It matters because the Armed Forces are supposed to reflect the society they protect. There are consequences for how students from state schools see their position in society. Targets for female representation in the Army have been set at 15% by 2020 and for BAME officers have been set at 10%. With these kind of targets in place, there should be similar standards put into place regarding educational background. 

However, the Ministry of Defence needs to be cautious in its approach when encouraging progression in the Army. It could easily have the adverse effect of preventing pupils who may go into higher managerial jobs from doing so by becoming privates. Once more, this is a problem not just in the Armed Forces, as Britain’s most elite universities still over-recruit from private schools. Four in ten pupils at Oxford attended a private school and only 63% of pupils at Cambridge attended a state school. What is certainly clear is that the issue of elitism is one that continues to be a problem, even where we may least expect it.