DfES backs later university admissions
Delaying university applications until pupils have received their A-Level results is ‘right in principle’, the DfES announced today. Higher Education Minister Alan Johnson welcomed the idea of post-qualification applications, following the publication of a favourable study on the issue.
The government-commissioned report claimed that the system would bring significant benefits for pupils and universities, but stressed that its introduction would have to be carefully managed.
Young people are free to delay their applications or re-apply after their A-Levels under the current system, but they are forced to take a year out if they choose to do so because of the proximity of the release of the results to the start of the academic year.
The proposed scheme would alter the academic schedule to give pupils time to receive their grades, and be assessed and interviewed by universities, before taking up their places later the same year.
Mr. Johnson outlined the Government’s position: ‘It could help to widen participation and make university admissions clearer and fairer. But the bottom line is that it needs to be agreed with key stakeholders, including the devolved administrations as it can only operate on a UK wide basis.’
The president of Universities UK, Professor Ivor Crewe, backed Mr. Johnson, noting: ‘Those students who got better A-Level results than they had expected might well then change the universities they chose to apply to.’
‘And the other benefit is to universities: it would mean that we would be selecting students on the basis of their actual A-Level results – their actual performance – rather than what was predicted by them or by their schools.’
The major obstacle is the fact that there is only a month between the publication of A-Level results and the start of the university year. The options looked at in the report included starting the school year earlier for all pupils, which would bring the date of the A-Level exams forward, or starting the university year later – either in November or January.
Professor Crewe has claimed that starting in January would be ‘very damaging to universities’ in terms of revenue from overseas students, and the number of pupils who might not take up their places after a break of more than six months.
Alan Johnson offered some comfort for the professor today when he stressed that he would ‘like to find a way to deliver PQA which requires the minimum of change for universities across the UK’.
