A question of equity

A new report out this week suggests that university admissions procedures are not fair to young people from disadvantaged schools. Lucy Hodges looks at its proposals

A great debate on university admissions was launched this week by Professor Steven Schwartz, vice chancellor of Brunel and the man charged with examining the fairness of university admissions. Anyone who has been following so-called newspaper leaks might have been expecting Professor Schwartz to plump for a lottery system for picking candidates, or indeed have thought that the Government was going to endorse a scheme for admitting disadvantaged youngsters on lower grades than others. Neither of these is true, however.

Professor Schwartz's report, as he was at pains to point out, is a discussion document. He is raising questions and hoping to get some answers. So far he has won a measure of agreement from the higher education sector ­ that, for example, universities should be able to choose their own students, the government should not tell them what to do and their selection systems should be reliable. He has also found agreement that selection procedures should be transparent and that admissions officers should be trained.

At the moment admissions officers are not trained. In fact the job carries low status. It is often the youngest lecturer in the department who gets stuck with the job of admissions. And admissions policies have been far from transparent. One criticism of Bristol's admissions policy was that it was not open and clear. Candidates from independent schools found by reading the newspapers that some departments at Bristol operated their own "quota" systems for the number of students they took from independent and state schools. That policy has now been reviewed and Bristol has published its new admissions criteria.

Not surprisingly, Professor Schwartz also found agreement that admissions should be by merit. The problem was that not everyone agreed what was meant by merit. For some, it meant choosing those with the highest marks. "For these people, admitting a student with a lower mark ahead of a student with a higher mark is not only unfair but also morally wrong," he says. For others it meant trying to find those who might not get the highest marks ­ perhaps because of their social background ­ but were nonetheless thought to be bright.

This week Professor Schwartz was not saying what he thought. Once he has consulted on his discussion document, his steering group will prepare a set of recommendations. There will then be more consultation until the final recommendations are drawn up to be delivered to Charles Clarke in May 2004. When the Office for Fair Access is established, it will be able to use his report in going about its work.

And, according to Professor Schwartz, the report was not produced in response to the row over admissions at Bristol University. The steering group was set up following the White Paper on higher education. That proposed top-up fees and said that any university wanting to charge top-up fees would have to have an agreement in place to ensure that disadvantaged students were not penalised.

But the row over admissions at Bristol was rumbling along at the same time. The independent schools had been complaining that their candidates were not being treated fairly ­ they were winning places at Oxford and Cambridge but not at Bristol, suggesting that Bristol was discriminating against candidates they regarded as toffs. Independent schools began a boycott of Bristol, which has now been lifted. The independent schools may not like everything in the discussion document but they will now be able to make their views heard.

Professor Schwartz's Questions

Should students be selected on their potential to complete a course successfully or to achieve the highest grades or to contribute to society, or on a combination of these factors?

Do you think that it is important that universities have students from a wide range of backgrounds?

Is it fair for universities, when they look at grades, to consider any obstacles that candidates have had to overcome, such as illness, attending a low-achieving school or having family problems?

Is it fair for a university to offer some students a place on lower exam results than others? Should the school the applicant has attended be considered in admissions?

Is it a good idea to consider other measures of assessment? If so should the following be used ­ interviews, compact arrangements, school performance, personal and family background considerations and aptitude testing?

Should we move to a system of post qualification applications? Do you favour using class rank or GCSE grades?

Send your comments to: Admissions to HE Consultation Unit, Level 1, Area B, Castle View House, East Lane, Runcorn, WA7 2GJ

l.hodges@independent.co.uk