Responding to the recommendations of Universities UK’s Fair
Admissions Review, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the
Association of School and College Leaders,
said:
“School and college leaders will be pleased with the plan to
outlaw the use of so-called ‘conditional unconditional offers’.
“This type of offer demotivates students from doing as well as
they can in A-levels and other important qualifications, and
encourages them to accept courses which may not best suit them.
“It is a marketing tactic designed to put ‘bums on seats’ and is
driven by intense competition between universities rather than
the best interests of students.
“Universities UK deserves great credit for this move to put the
sector’s house in order and for proposing a new code of practice
to maintain admission standards.
“We also welcome its support for an overhaul of the current
university admission system.
“There is a growing consensus in favour of ending the current
reliance on predicted grades and moving to a system of
post-qualification admissions.
“Teachers work hard and diligently to provide accurate predicted
grades, but it is not an exact science, and never can be.
“Post-qualification admissions would be better and fairer.
“There are different models about how this might work and we
welcome UUK’s recommendations in the review as part of that
discussion.”
