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A few years ago I had a young student who did well enough to go from his undergraduate degree to a Masters and then get a scholarship to pursue a PhD. He had been state educated and often compared his journey to some of his peers who came from privately educated backgrounds. The debate surrounding private and state schools continues to divide educators and policy makers especially when it comes to entry to higher education. This is because while money and education are often linked, education isn’t simply another material asset, its fundamental to who you are and what you can become. In the recent scheme known as Realising Opportunities, some of Britain’s leading research intensive universities will reduce entry requirements by more than two grades so poorer and underprivileged students with potential can secure more places. Over the years, under the umbrella of widening participation, various initiatives have been set up to promote access and social mobility for students from less represented backgrounds. These schemes are well intentioned but there are multiple, social implications to this. Universities can be powerful vehicles for social mobility and helping young people who were never encouraged to apply to top universities, may be the first step in realising their real potential; it’s an ethical imperative. But I think that as long as we have the pressures of exams and grades being the main barometer of educational excellence, our endeavours to create greater fairness will be limited. Coming out of Covid, we could use this opportunity to reimagine our educational institutions and in so doing, reimagine our societies. A healthy democracy requires that we have young people across all cultural and economic backgrounds who don’t feel they’ve been denied a fair chance, that their creative talents are recognised and nurtured for greater societal impact. This may be a moral stance but it also makes economic sense, driving innovation and even social cohesion. No-one can help the circumstances into which they are born and grow up. In Islamic thought, denying someone the right to seek knowledge is a violation of their dignity even if sadly, the saying ‘a father can give his child nothing better than a good education’ is ignored in many parts of the Islamic world. Achieving fairness isn’t easy but if the wider purpose of education is introspection and internal growth – then we can’t only focus on grades, rather we have to think about how we give lifelong opportunities.