The poet and academic Benjamin Zephaniah, who a professor of creative writing at Brunel University, has warned against government proposals that would see anyone failing GCSE maths and English barred from securing higher education loans in England.

The plan to link student loans eligibility to GCSE results was revealed last week as part of reforms to university access. There were immediate concerns that the measures would impact disproportionately on poorer students when they were unveiled alongside new rules about how loans and fees will be repaid.

Zephaniah told the Observer that his struggles with dyslexia showed that the government should find a “more open-minded, more accessible” approach to eligibility for a student loan.

“I’m a professor at Brunel University, and I oversee a whole department of creative writing,” he said. “I tend to start my term looking at my students and saying to them: ‘On paper, you’re all more educated than me’. I had a completely different life journey from all of my students. Some of it was luck, but a lot of it was just passion for a language I was dyslexic in.

“In school, I was a failure. Now they study my books to pass exams. We have to be a bit more creative and open-minded about the way we get students into university. I’m a huge fan of apprenticeships. But in many things, you can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. Not everybody should go to university, but not everybody who fails their GCSEs shouldn’t go to university.”

Zephaniah grew up in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, the son of a Barbadian postman and a Jamaican nurse. He left school at the age of 13 unable to read or write, and served time in prison for burglary. His autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, was published in 2018.

Gillian Ashley, chief executive of the British Dyslexia Association, said: “Creating a blanket rule with set grades required to enter university discriminates against those with dyslexia. It excludes the strengths they might demonstrate through other forms of assessment.”

The Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity said the government’s proposal was “misconceived and conflicts with its intention to level up society. This proposal fails to consider the needs of neurodivergent students, such as those with dyslexia, many of whom have strong oral communication skills, but struggle to convey their knowledge and understanding through the written word.”

PHOTOGRAPH: BLOODAXE BOOKS