The Guardian commented that:
‘Girls now outstrip boys from primary school to degree level, while the number of ethnic minority students at top universities has doubled since 1995, according to a report published today by the thinktank Policy Exchange. Competition has never been so ferocious for poor white boys, but still they can find defiant male role models suggesting that school isn’t necessarily everything.’
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The FT commented that:
‘The UK’s leading business lobby faces accusations of hypocrisy after failing to follow its own recommendations to improve ethnic diversity in British business. The Policy Exchange, a think-tank, said the CBI did not have a single non-white senior director at a national or regional level, despite urging its members to broaden the diversity of their directors. David Goodhart, head of the exchange’s integration and immigration unit, said: “It is incumbent on organisations which represent British business such as the CBI to lead by example. It came as a bit of a surprise that the organisation that talks such a good game on diversity doesn’t practice what it preaches.” The exchange’s research found that the representation of Britain’s ethnic minorities in some professions, such as law and medicine, had increased substantially, in particular from British Indian and Chinese backgrounds.’
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City A.M. commented that:
‘A blazing row has broken out over diversity in business after think tank Policy Exchange branded the CBI “hypocritical” for its failure to employ a single non-white director. The think tank, which was credited with many of the central themes behind David Cameron‘s premiership, blasted the business group as part of a new report into opportunities for ethnic minorities at the top of enterprise. The new research from Policy Exchange found that just 1.5 per cent of FTSE 100 directors, or 17 people, are British-born non-whites, while there is not a single non-white chief executive in London or eight other “core cities”. And while the wonks hailed efforts from the likes of the Institute of Directors and the CBI to improve diversity, it singled out the latter business lobby for failing to set an example. “We were surprised that not one member of their national leadership team are non-white given that they are talking such a big game on it,” a Policy Exchange spokesman told City A.M.’
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The Sunday Times commented that:
‘Britain’s ethnic minorities have risen dramatically into the professional middle classes, doubling their numbers in top universities and leapfrogging white people to land more of the top jobs. In the space of less than one generation, the overall proportion of Russell Group university students from ethnic minorities has doubled, from 9% in 1995 to 18% now. They have also overhauled white people in the ranks of the top social class, with 11.6% of them classified as managerial and professional, while 10.8% of whites belong to that class. The findings are hailed, in a report on the prospects of Britain’s ethnic minorities, as a partial fulfilment of the “immigrant promise — hardship today for the implicit promise that tomorrow will be brighter for the kids”. The report, by the Policy Exchange think tank, concludes that some ethnic minority groups, led by British Indians and British Chinese, have achieved great success as a result of educational effort and entrepreneurial drive.’