It isn't clear what grounds students should be admitted on, and how their suitability or capability for a course is to be assessed. In the absence of study and academic achievement, or private study, how is 'aptitude' to be measured?
I expect that's why they've given him four months to come up with an answer rather than four days. Your reaction seems rather surprising - what they are saying is, can you please come up with a way to assess students that better reflects their likely academic success than the current system, which massively favours those with wealthy parents, a superb school, or both. It really isn't as hard as you're making out (though clearly hard enough, or they'd have done it by now).
For instance, you could give pre-interview training to state school kids. Public school kids get special classes, often one-on-one with tutors who have got dozens of students into Oxbridge previously. State school kids? Zilch. I speak from experience, and that of other successful state school Oxbridge alumni that I know of.
Nobody is saying that hard work and study shouldn't count for anything. The point is that if you have the wrong background, you aren't likely to come in with a fantastic level of study to back you up. Interviewers need to work out whether, with the right support, applicants would be capable of working hard and studying to get a good result.
Suitability includes the ability to study - so much university learning is and always has been 'unsupported' - that's part of what universities do - train students to learn independently, though providing a framework within which a student can hit the labs and the texts. Though A-level may not reflect that well enough, inability to cope at A-level is sometime just that and not all teenagers retain their early promise. Of course there are always exceptions and helping universities identify those is a good thing, much needed. Most universities are already putting a lot of work into that because they're aware of the issues and they know funding will increasingly depend upon proving success in those areas. However, the approach just announced seems rushed, threatens to be overprescriptive, and appears to put the onus on universities to remedy failings best addressed by (or at most in tandem with) schools and further education centres. My problem isn't with improving identification of those with the potential to achieve regardless of background - I think that's laudable and that agree that A-levels alone aren't necessarily a good measure of an applicant's capabilities or suitability for a course. My problem is with hurried, ill-thought-out blanket policies which remove universities' room to decide who is most suitable for their (very diverse) courses. (About standardisation of university courses I'll save my thoughts for another time.) A two-grade weighting based on postcode or school may be fine for many (I suspect not all) courses at Leeds but it's an oversimplified measure (we'll see to what extent from their drop-out rates and any changes in peer/employer respect for their courses over the next five years). Precisely because one-size doesn't fit all for measuring the students to date, one size won't fit all institutions or courses for a solution.
Weighting of considerations per course & per student is time-and admin consuming, hence costly and will remain so unless another ill-fitting blanket approach is imposed, better measures for potential are implemented or better support provided by educators before the university-application stage is reached.
If the recommendation is for a framework for funding schools and further education providers to provide more support, while collaborating and consulting more with universities, that'll be great. The tone of the announcements seemed more to create a new enlarged set of responsibilities for universities at the stages before Higher Education. Four months still isn't long enough to make a recommendation on something universities have been wrestling for years - four years is more like it rather than bashing something out in time to flash at the election.
I'm prepared to believe the systems you mention are poor/too "one size fits all"; but you have no basis at all for thinking they or anything like them are what is being announced, since what is being announced is essentially a review. I'm still quite puzzled by your angry reaction to the announcement which essentially didn't make any new policy statement!
I actually think some of the things you say about university, while reasonably in tune with the received wisdom, are kind of worrying. If universities are supposed to train you to learn independently, then why do you need to show that you already can? If A levels don't train to you learn independently, then what use are they in telling whether you're ready for university? In some ways I think this sort of line is a cover for the Oxbridge method which is, broadly, to cherry-pick the best students and then give them almost no support at all - supplemented only by a scant hour or two with a tutor once a week. I certainly don't remember being "trained" to learn independently - I was just lucky that I took to it.
Finally, I dispute that four months isn't long enough. It is precisely because this problem has been around a long time that four months *should* be long enough. This exercise should be a review of existing evidence, with its virtue being that its conclusions will be reached independent of ministers rather than it necessarily being ground-breaking.
I expect that's why they've given him four months to come up with an answer rather than four days. Your reaction seems rather surprising - what they are saying is, can you please come up with a way to assess students that better reflects their likely academic success than the current system, which massively favours those with wealthy parents, a superb school, or both. It really isn't as hard as you're making out (though clearly hard enough, or they'd have done it by now).
For instance, you could give pre-interview training to state school kids. Public school kids get special classes, often one-on-one with tutors who have got dozens of students into Oxbridge previously. State school kids? Zilch. I speak from experience, and that of other successful state school Oxbridge alumni that I know of.
Nobody is saying that hard work and study shouldn't count for anything. The point is that if you have the wrong background, you aren't likely to come in with a fantastic level of study to back you up. Interviewers need to work out whether, with the right support, applicants would be capable of working hard and studying to get a good result.
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My problem isn't with improving identification of those with the potential to achieve regardless of background - I think that's laudable and that agree that A-levels alone aren't necessarily a good measure of an applicant's capabilities or suitability for a course. My problem is with hurried, ill-thought-out blanket policies which remove universities' room to decide who is most suitable for their (very diverse) courses. (About standardisation of university courses I'll save my thoughts for another time.) A two-grade weighting based on postcode or school may be fine for many (I suspect not all) courses at Leeds but it's an oversimplified measure (we'll see to what extent from their drop-out rates and any changes in peer/employer respect for their courses over the next five years). Precisely because one-size doesn't fit all for measuring the students to date, one size won't fit all institutions or courses for a solution.
Weighting of considerations per course & per student is time-and admin consuming, hence costly and will remain so unless another ill-fitting blanket approach is imposed, better measures for potential are implemented or better support provided by educators before the university-application stage is reached.
If the recommendation is for a framework for funding schools and further education providers to provide more support, while collaborating and consulting more with universities, that'll be great. The tone of the announcements seemed more to create a new enlarged set of responsibilities for universities at the stages before Higher Education. Four months still isn't long enough to make a recommendation on something universities have been wrestling for years - four years is more like it rather than bashing something out in time to flash at the election.
Reply
I actually think some of the things you say about university, while reasonably in tune with the received wisdom, are kind of worrying. If universities are supposed to train you to learn independently, then why do you need to show that you already can? If A levels don't train to you learn independently, then what use are they in telling whether you're ready for university? In some ways I think this sort of line is a cover for the Oxbridge method which is, broadly, to cherry-pick the best students and then give them almost no support at all - supplemented only by a scant hour or two with a tutor once a week. I certainly don't remember being "trained" to learn independently - I was just lucky that I took to it.
Finally, I dispute that four months isn't long enough. It is precisely because this problem has been around a long time that four months *should* be long enough. This exercise should be a review of existing evidence, with its virtue being that its conclusions will be reached independent of ministers rather than it necessarily being ground-breaking.
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