UNIVERSITIES Scotland director Alastair Sim says doing well and being motivated should lead to the chance of a university place. If only it were quite so simple.

He’s right, up to a point, but this is a vexed issue, which does not always lend itself to the kind of clear thinking prized in higher education.

The principle of widening access is challenging to the middle classes. It is true that students from relatively well-off backgrounds are overrepresented at university. We know this for a fact and we know the reasons, more or less.

They are more likely to come from families where education is valued, more likely to have role models for whom proceeding to higher education was a given. While at school they are more likely to have the encouragement to complete homework, a quiet place in which to do it and books and other resources for study at home.

If you do well at school and work hard, there should be a place at university for you, Mr Sim says. But it is the first part of that sentence which is deceptively complicated. What is “doing well” at school?

For some, it means exam passes, and those who get good exam results should, therefore, be those who take up a university place. Denying a place to someone who has gained the necessary grades, in favour of someone who has not is unfair, critics of widening access say. But we cannot shy away from the fact that exams measure levels of advantage more effectively than they do potential.

The sport of exam success is not played out on a level playing field. If it were, the Scottish Government would not currently be so exercised about addressing the attainment gap in schools.

Professor Peter Scott, the Government’s widening access tsar ruffled feathers on his appointment by saying university should not be seen as a “reward” for working hard at school. He referred to a sense of entitlement to higher education from pupils who get good grades and from their families. It is easy to see why that sense of entitlement might exist, and critics of widening access dispute the need for “positive discrimination”.

But the flawed nature of exam passes as a measure of innate ability is precisely why we need a widening access tsar, and a university admissions process geared to recognising a potential students wider qualities. And that may entail lowering the entry grades required for some pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It is specious to bemoan positive discrimination without addressing the fact that the system is already discriminatory.

The challenge for universities is not an easy one, and there is a need for balance. If the academic requirements for reaching university are dropped too far, there is a danger of simply setting up less-qualified students to fail. But equally, admissions processes need to be able to spot the student who is able, yet has not entirely managed to overcome significant social or educational disadvantage.

If they can do that effectively, universities should have no lack of confidence in their ability to take that student and help them achieve as much success as any entrant with a clutch of top-rated Highers and Advanced Highers.