David Cameron - Education

Education

From the age of seven, Cameron was educated at two independent schools: at Heatherdown Preparatory School at Winkfield, in Berkshire, which counts Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its alumni. Due to good academic grades, Cameron entered its top academic class almost two years early. At the age of thirteen, he went to Eton College in Berkshire, following his father and elder brother. Eton is often described as the most famous independent school in the world, and "the chief nurse of England's statesmen". His early interest was in art. Six weeks before taking his O-Levels he was named as having smoked cannabis. He admitted the offence and had not been involved in selling drugs, so he was not expelled, but was fined, prevented from leaving school grounds, and given a "Georgic" (a punishment which involved copying 500 lines of Latin text).

Cameron passed 12 O-levels, and then studied three A-Levels in History of Art, History and Economics with Politics. He obtained three 'A' grades and a '1' grade in the Scholarship Level exam in Economics and Politics. The following autumn he passed the entrance exam for Oxford University, where he was offered an exhibition.

After leaving Eton in 1984, Cameron started a nine-month gap year. He worked as a researcher for Tim Rathbone, Conservative MP for Lewes, his godfather. In his three months he attended debates in the House of Commons. Through his father, he was then employed for a further three months in Hong Kong by Jardine Matheson as a 'ship jumper', an administrative post.

Returning from Hong Kong he visited the then Soviet Union, where he was approached by two Russian men speaking fluent English. Cameron was later told by one of his professors that it was 'definitely an attempt' by the KGB to recruit him.

Cameron then began his Bachelor of Arts studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Brasenose College, Oxford. His tutor, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, described him as "one of the ablest" students he has taught, with "moderate and sensible Conservative" political views. Guy Spier, who shared tutorials with him, remembers him as an outstanding student; "We were doing our best to grasp basic economic concepts. David - there was nobody else who came even close. He would be integrating them with the way the British political system is put together. He could have lectured me on it, and I would have sat there and taken notes.." When commenting in 2006 on his former pupil's ideas about a "Bill of Rights" to replace the Human Rights Act, however, Professor Bogdanor, himself a Liberal Democrat, said, "I think he is very confused. I've read his speech and it's filled with contradictions. There are one or two good things in it but one glimpses them, as it were, through a mist of misunderstanding".

While at Oxford, Cameron was a member of the élite student dining society, the Bullingdon Club, with a reputation for an outlandish drinking culture associated with boisterous behaviour and damaging property. A photograph showing Cameron in a tailcoat with other members of this exclusive club, including Boris Johnson, surfaced in 2007, but was later withdrawn by the copyright holder. Cameron's period in the Bullingdon Club was examined in a Channel 4 docu-drama, When Boris Met Dave, broadcast on 7 October 2009. His friends outside the Bullingdon Club included fellow PPE student Catherine Fall. Cameron graduated in 1988 with a first class honours degree (MA).