The Milburn report recently found that social mobility in the UK is ‘flatlining at best’. In the ten years since you founded TeachFirst, has this been your impression?

I would never say that TeachFirst, we’re the ones who are going to change social mobility on our own. The good news is: London schools have gotten a lot better, and there are fewer ‘bad’ schools in the UK. Another positive trend is that more children from low-income backgrounds are going to university than ten years ago. However, a lot more young people end up not going into employment, education or training: they’re predominantly from lower-income backgrounds.

Is the lowly status of teaching as a graduate profession still a problem?

Not at all: one thing I think we can take some credit for (with others) is that teaching is held in much higher regard now as a graduate career choice. When we started ten years ago, you could probably count how many Cambridge grads went on to teach at a low-income school on one hand – maybe less than that. In the last ten years, teaching in low income schools has become the top career choice for Cambridge graduates – and that’s had a knock-on effect throughout the profession

So what’s the key to TeachFirst’s success?

British graduates. When we started, people really underestimated what British university graduates wanted to do with their lives: there was a real belief that that top university students were quite selfish, just money-motivated – there weren’t a lot of options out there that enabled people to give back. From day one, we’ve proved that wrong. People really care about this issue and want to make change happen. There is a lot more of a social consciousness among young people in Britain that people would have given them credit for, ten years ago for instance. If there hadn’t been, we wouldn’t be successful right now.

Are you ever surprised by the level of success you’ve had?

I’m probably not as surprised as everyone else; I’ve always been a bit naïf, maybe, and had a higher belief in this than many people. In the early years, we really struggled with funding, but there was never a real crisis moment.

Does you have any advice for students slightly daunted by the prospect of graduation?

I would say, follow your heart: look for opportunities. When you’re young, when you’re a student, that’s the time to be a bit naïf and do what people say is impossible – if you’re not going to do it in your twenties, when are you going to?