Privates on Parade. Sandhurst, Soldiers and State Schools

The British Army is once again under fire for reportedly recruiting nearly 50% of its intake to Sandhurst from Private Schools. Each year hundreds of potential Officers report to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, hoping to pass a gruelling year long course and receive a Commission, and the prize of being able to lead some of the finest men and women in the world for a living.

Official MOD statistics suggest that for the last few years, of the approximately 600 strong annual intake to RMAS, nearly half of them identify as having gone to Public school rather than a State school. (For the benefit of non-UK readers, Public schools are fee paying schools and State schools are fee free schools). Is this a problem though, or is it something that is an issue only in the minds of those who let it bother them?

RMAS Passing out Parade- Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The first question is to consider some numbers and context. It is important to note that official MOD statistics confirm that when recording these figures, they only count one school type – so it is entirely possible that someone could have attended both State and Private education, but be recorded only in one category.

Secondly, this figure is not clear whether it includes foreign cadets in its statistics – given they make up 15% of each years entries (some 90-100 people), it is important to ask what impact this has on the weighting of these statistics – how many foreign cadets had a Private education, and does this unduly influence the overall statistics?

Finally, a useful number to remember is that you can attend RMAS from (approximately) the ages of 18-30, but the average age on entry is 23. Despite the image that Sandhurst is full of young people joining straight from school, the reality is somewhat different.  To Humphrey, the issue of whether a cadet is privately educated or not is perhaps of significantly less interest than the question of what motivates someone to join in the first place, and how does the Army persuade a grown adult to leave civilian life and join the Army in their mid 20s?

The recruiting process is lengthy, designed to allow people to take a long look at the Army, and vice versa. A combination of online applications, interviews, a one day long ‘pre-briefing’ and finally a three day selection board combine together to produce a group of individuals deemed to have the potential to pass the demanding course at Sandhurst.

AOSB in progress

It is hard to find accurate and up to date statistics about how many people go from registering an initial ‘expression of interest’ via the Army Website through to being selected for a place at RMAS. Although a few years old, this article in the Daily Express suggests that numbers were dropping from over 10,000 expressions of interest for officers,  to about 5000 in 2014. It is difficult to find accurate data since this point.

The latest figures for attendance at the AOSB Briefing seem to go back to 2013 – where there was roughly a 30% attrition rate from attending the briefing, to attendance at AOSB itself, which in turn had a roughly 50% pass rate. It seems reasonable to assume that there would be several thousand expressions of interest and initial interviews even before people get to AOSB.

Why then is the system so orientated towards former Private School students, and what does this say about the Army? The first thought Humphrey has is that it is important to understand who these former Private School attendees are, and how many of them are the children of military officers who benefitted from the ‘Continuity of Education Allowance’ (CEA).

This allowance, available to all ranks, permits people to send children to good schools, providing a heavy subsidy to enable children to benefit from a stable education. It is seen as a retention positive allowance, particularly for more senior personnel who find that it allows them to send their children to schools that would otherwise be unaffordable on their salaries, and also ensures long term continuity for their children.

There is sometimes misplaced criticism that this is somehow a ‘senior officer privilege’ – in reality the allowance is open to all ranks. But, the demographics often mitigate against junior soldiers or officers having children in the age where they would benefit from it. It is extremely important though to be clear that CEA is open to everyone.

Understanding this matters a lot as it is likely that a not insignificant proportion of applicants to RMAS may be from military families who want to follow in their parents footsteps. While the AOSB process is utterly impartial in its assessment of people (indeed, perhaps children of existing personnel struggle more to pass because they need to show they really genuinely want this, rather than just following the path of least resistance), these people will be attending with an understanding and ‘inside track’ of the sort of skills and competences required to pass.

If they have benefitted from CEA, then they will be recorded on the system at RMAS as having gone to private school – despite coming from a military family which could be on a relatively low income. There are many accounts of people out there who come from families with humble origins, whose parents, having benefitted from the superb social mobility offered by a career in the British Army, ended up being able to send them to good schools through CEA, and in turn they commissioned. If anything, this is an example of the British Army commitment to social mobility in action, providing people a chance to move seamlessly through the system without a hint of prejudice or snobbery about their background.

It is also possible that having grown up ‘in the system’, this understanding and general familiarity with the world of the Army helps these potential officers stand a good chance of understanding the world they wish to enter.

By contrast, if you are a non ‘forces brat’ and have no prior experience of the military, then entering the recruiting system is likely to be the first time you will have seen first-hand the military lifestyle. The Army runs a variety of familiarisation visits and courses to introduce people to the work they do, the sort of troops people will be leading and the lifestyle of a junior officer. This period of showing off the Army is akin to courtship, helping people decide if they like the initial dates enough to turn it into a long-term relationship.

While some people may go on these courses and feel a huge draw to the life and the privilege of leading soldiers, others may look at it and realise that military life simply isn’t for them. The dream of going to Sandhurst perhaps fails to prove as inspiring, maybe in discovering for example the, at times, somewhat stilted life in some Messes. For example, experiencing that many junior officers will spend their spare time eating not particularly good school dinner food in a borderline travel lodge environment whilst wearing a suit and tie in the mess may be extremely off-putting to some (any potential recruit who had the once sampled and never forgotten ‘curry burrito with steamed veg’ offered at PJHQ would likely not just cancel their application, but sue for potential human rights abuses too).

If you are applying from a background which doesn’t involve exposure to the military, or where you are not familiar with the austere and at times odd quasi-public school lifestyle of a mess, it is easy to imagine that this is where many potential applicants could drop out. While the statistics are not available, it would be extremely interesting to look at the number of dropouts of people who having entered the recruiting process and met the Army first-hand, decide that the reality of military life isn’t for them.

The other question is what is it about an Army career that makes people want to join, and why does it appeal to such a small group of people. In the UK, there are roughly 600,000 people graduating each year from first or taught Post Graduate education. The Army requirement is roughly 5- 600 people each year to go to Sandhurst – less than 0.1% of the total graduate population each year.

Is there something in the general nature of the Army life and offer that appeals more to individuals who have spent time in Private School (e.g. the boarding school nature of the lifestyle) than perhaps people who have had little exposure to the huge benefits offered by a career in the Armed Forces?

People who have experienced first-hand the opportunities on offer – for example through the Cadet Forces, or membership of a University Officer Training Corps (UOTC) may feel that this is a good career choice for them. But, if you’ve not experienced this, or had the opportunity in school to meet the Army or learn about the lifestyle, then it becomes harder to find out about it, or learn what is required.

As the pool of ‘veterans’ (e.g. individuals with direct experience of military life) shrinks, the challenge for the Army is to continue to attract people who want to join beyond their usual recruiting grounds. The risk is that recruitment almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the people applying to join are those who know the life and offer, and know they want to be part of it. This means that while some amazing people are going into the Army, it effectively finds itself drawing on an ever-narrower gene pool of talents to recruit from. Breaking out of this and drawing on new fresh talent is going to be critical if the Army wants to survive.

There are already several good initiatives in play to help bring talent through and show that the Army looks for talent in all manner of places. The Army offers a variety of scholarships and ‘potential officer development schemes’ for recruits and in-service candidates that help to maximise their potential. These are essential to help bring people through, but more is needed to be done to appeal to people to apply.

The challenge though is what gives in terms of the Army’s social structure and lifestyle to make it more relevant to a talented workforce that may not like what the Army wider offer is? As noted, mess life can be uninspiring at times, and in an age where people want to spend time with their friends online, being forced to live in a Victorian mess may simply be a turn off, not a recruiting tool.

The Army needs to work out how much of the wider fabric of what it means to be an officer is still essential, and how much of it perhaps can fall by the wayside to appeal to new joiners. Modern recruits joining at 23 or 24 have been in the real world, and they’ve likely lived in Halls of Residence or Flat Shares. Many of them may want good wifi and ability to cook their own food with mates, prior to playing games online – to them Regimental life may be appealing, but not a draw.

The wider question for the Army is looking at whether the lifestyle offer is still relevant to a modern workforce whose values and approaches to life are very different to that of 30 or 40 years ago. For example, on reading the syllabus of the ‘Potential Officer Development Programme’ run for Junior Ranks seeking to commission,  it feels a bit dated.

Suggestions that there is a need for ‘cultural visits’, cheese and wine tasting and modules on social etiquette feel increasingly dated and off-putting. Surely in the 21^st century there is no need to put high performing soldiers with the leadership potential to commission through this sort of course? Do any other large companies do similar programmes for growing internal talent, or do they just give them the opportunity to shine?

It is this wider question of keeping the Army relevant to the society it recruits from, while still being able to keep the life and style that makes it the force it is that will be challenging. Ensuring the talent of tomorrow feels the Army reflects their own values and standards, and the life is one that gives them job satisfaction is utterly critical.

Although the standards of AOSB are absolute, and it is clear that people are judged on ability and not where they went to school, perhaps the time has come to be even more open about this. Maybe one small change that could be adopted would be to move to the Civil Service practise of removing all academic information from applications, to make each applicant be assessed purely on their performance on the day.

A few years ago the Civil Service moved to ensure that job applications were anonymised, with personal details removed until sifts were done, and all details of schools and universities attended were not permitted. People going for an interview with the Civil Service will not find the panel knowing where they went to school or university, and it plays not part in the selection process. 

Perhaps the time has come to do something similar for the Army, and remove all reference to academic establishments in the process to ensure that there is no perception that the name of your school or university plays a part in your chances of selection?

There is a wealth of talent in the UK, and the British Army is lucky enough to be able to select the very best to go to Sandhurst. The standard is absolute, the process rigorous and fair. More importantly, the sheer social mobility offered by the Army to many people who would otherwise be stuck never fails to amaze.

One only has to look more widely at the sheer quality of personnel leaving Sandhurst, the Army Training Regiments and the Army Foundation College in Harrogate to realise that if there is one thing the Army excels at, it is taking raw talent and turning it into something really special indeed. It offers great careers, good salaries and amazing futures to young people regardless of where they went to school or university.

It is frustrating to see the debate stuck on ‘why is it only toffs and posh people who join the Army’, as if recruiting people who grew up as a military child and want to continue the family heritage is a bad thing. Yes there is an interesting question about why 50% of Sandhurst entrants went to Public School when only 7% of the UK population as a whole do, but this question is more about why is it that the Army offer appeal to these people, and what more can be done to keep people interested and tempted by an Army career.

There probably does need to be a bigger look at the structure and life of the mess, and the way that this can be a strange body to outsiders which can be off-putting to many. Balancing the future of mess life with the expectations of the current generation and their demand for virtual contact and different ways of living will be a constant challenge for years to come. But it is one that the Army can rise to.

Finally, for those who think that Sandhurst exists as a finishing school for the privileged few, it is worth remembering that in 2016, the winner of the Sandhurst ‘Sword of Honour’ (Officer Cadet Cousland) grew up on a council estate, and left school unable to read. Yet, after joining the Army as a Private, he was able to apply for and received a Commission. This story highlights that to the Army, where you went to school is vastly less important than the raw talent you possess which can be turned into a future leader of people.