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date: 19 August 2010

embargo: For immediate release

A-level results underline barriers to social mobility

Commenting on today's (Thursday) A-level results, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

'Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister committed the Government to improving social mobility. Today we learn how much there is to do.

'Thousands of students with good A-levels have learnt that they do not have a college place and no easy alternative of work amid entrenched youth unemployment.

'Whatever its intentions, the introduction of the A* grade will do even more to favour the conveyor belt from private education to top universities.

'Britain remains one of the most unequal and class-bound societies in the developed world. We cannot lift the barriers to social mobility without radical action to make the UK less unequal, yet the policies of deep cuts to public spending are doing the opposite.'

NOTES TO EDITORS:

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Contacts:

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Press release (300 words) issued 19 Aug 2010