More pupils from state schools will be among the intake at the University of Oxford this autumn than any time in the past 40 years.

Almost 60 per cent of students will come from a state-educated background, up almost 10 per cent on just over a decade ago, the BBC has reported.

There have been calls for leading universities to accept pupils from a wider range of backgrounds, and Dr Samina Khan, head of undergraduate admissions at Oxford, said the university took the responsibilities of encouraging diversity “incredibly seriously”.

Last year its colleges worked with 3,400 schools on about 3,000 “outreach” projects, and Dr Khan said the upturn in state school entries showed its efforts to increase applications from under-represented groups were “bearing fruit”.

Oxford has offered 59.2 per cent of places to state school pupils this year, although the final figure for acceptances has yet to be confirmed.

This compares with 55.6 per cent last year, 51.4 per cent in 2005 and 48.1 per cent in 1995.

Parliamentary figures show that in 1961 just a third of of entrants were from state schools.

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