Not-so-bright tsar - Telegraph Les Ebdon, the Government's "fair access" tsar, is charged with cajoling the country's elite universities into taking more children from poorer homes. So he cannot be surprised to find himself under fire for criticising schools that are anxious for their pupils to study at the best institutions. In an interview with the Times Educational Supplement (TES) recently, Prof Ebdon said schools were often motivated by a "dreadful snobbery" to get their students into a particular university, and were under undue pressure to do so. He certainly made a valid point about the importance of ensuring the availability of apprenticeships and vocational courses for the less academically inclined. But Prof Ebdon, whose appointment was highly controversial, is guilty of failing to see that a desire to get to the best universities is an ambition to be encouraged. Lord Adonis, the former Labour education secretary, observed in a subsequent letter to the TES that if Prof Ebdon really believed that it was "snobbery" then he should step down from the post. His comments - which he said were taken out of context - are emblematic of everything that is wrong with the Office of Fair Access. It is not concerned with the attainment of educational excellence but with social engineering. Schools that aim to send the highest number of their pupils to the very best institutions do so because they want the best for them. Of course, some students will not be suited to the rigorous academic requirements of the top universities; but their hopes of getting there should not be snuffed out on specious grounds. Prof Ebdon might characterise the laudable ambitions of schools as "dreadful snobbery," but that only goes to show that Lord Adonis is right to question his fitness for the job.