Quotas will not help Oxbridge access, says Nabeelah Jaffer – many state school teachers are reluctant to help their pupils apply

Vince Cable suggested last week that reserving places for a range of pupils at top universities could help to bridge the gap that currently leaves children from the poorest homes seven times less likely than those from wealthier backgrounds to go on to receive the best higher education.

My experience with Oxford's access programmes has, however, suggested that imposing quotas on universities for their state school intake will do little to solve the reluctance of many state school teachers to encourage their pupils to apply, which holds many candidates back from even the chance to participate in one of the university's access initiatives.

College access officers routinely find their letters inviting schools to take part in access programmes being ignored, or even turned down. The e-mentoring scheme which my own college runs, pairing up high-achieving students from comprehensives with Oxford undergraduates, took four months to achieve just seven pairs of communicating students out of the 27 undergraduates who had signed up to participate. Despite the best efforts of our access officer to follow up the dozens of letters sent to headteachers with phone calls and emails, many ignored her overtures, with a few even turning her down.

The problem is not unique to my college, with a current access officer at an Oxford college known for its high state school intake suggesting that while headteachers are often keen to get involved, other teachers can be more reluctant. "I for one have found that several schools have taken a lot of persistence to get into."

"It seems to be a problem of teachers either being too busy, thinking it's irrelevant to their pupils considering the effort it would require, or having a negative attitude to Oxford [for the same reasons as their students might, or because a favourite pupil of theirs was rejected]."

The open days I've helped with have seen roughly equal numbers of potential undergraduates from private and state schools visit the university and college to ask questions and consider the courses, often as part of a school visit. While this is in proportion with the number of state and private school students admitted by Oxford each year, with 53.9% of places going to candidates from the state sector in 2009, and 46.1% to those from the independent sector, it remains wildly out of proportion with the national ratio, as roughly 93% of all students in the UK attend state schools.

A Mori survey conducted for the Sutton Trust in 2007 showed that 44% of secondary teachers mistakenly believed courses at Oxbridge were more expensive than at other universities. The report showed that 32% of secondary teachers believed that less than 20% of all Oxbridge undergraduates were from state schools, while 45% of teachers would rarely or never recommend applying to their pupils.

One Oxford graduate, Ailis, says she felt discouraged from applying by her own comprehensive. "I was very unsure about taking up my place at Oxford, because I felt it was elitist.

"My head of sixth form confirmed my rather uninformed ideas, saying she wasn't sure if I would fit in"

Hasina Manji, a secondary teacher at Alperton community school, says schools can be put off by the extra help Oxbridge applicants often require. "Where the school doesn't have the facility of a mentor or someone capable of grooming them for interviews, you lack someone qualified enough to prepare them, who knows the issues.

"For the school, it is an extra burden having to do all that for those people who want to apply – it's a long-haul process that can take up to a year."

Margaret Morrissey, of Parents Outloud, a website for parents and carers, says: "This is not something we have had a lot of complaints about. My only caution would be that teachers do tend to know their pupils well and perhaps feel they would not be wise to push Oxbridge for some students who would flourish in a slightly different university environment despite the perceived ability of the candidate."

Jennifer Cullen, working with Teach First – a charity that aims to get top graduates into teaching – highlights the reluctance of some teachers to urge a more rigorously academic university experience on students. "I think there's an opinion that possibly you get a more rounded experience at other universities, and that there are other things to life than the academic experience you get at Oxbridge."