higher education | Schools Week

‘Little progress’ made in closing university progression gap

Progress to get more disadvantaged pupils to attend university has stalled, warns think tank

IfS: 1 in 4 poorer pupils could lose out under proposed student loan grade thresholds

Around 1 in 10 recent education undergrads would also have been excluded, think tank warns

Augar review: What schools need to know about university shake-up

Ministers have set out their plans for higher education reform

Ministers scrap plans for post-qualification admissions

DfE says support for shake-up of university admissions was ‘not strong enough’

‘No need to finish your A-levels,’ universities tell school pupils

School pupils are being told by universities that they don’t need to finish their A-levels, it has been claimed. Pupils are “increasingly the subject of persuasive strategies” from universities, according to Bill Watkin, the chief executive of the Sixth-Form Colleges Association. Some are even encouraging pupils to quit school early and take up foundation degrees. […]

How can we better prepare students for university?

The narrow A-level curriculum is leaving more and more new undergraduates unable to cope with the rigours of university, says Mary Curnock Cook Earlier this autumn, over 330,000 young people made the leap from school or college to higher education. Many of them will have been ill-prepared for this transition, which involves a fundamental change […]

State school pupils will “struggle” to access top universities after government A-level reform

State schools will “struggle” to get to grips with university admission changes driven by the government’s A-level reforms – pushing them further behind their private school peers, a forum heard today. Some universities have overhauled their admission process after the government’s new linear A-level reforms. Higher education institutions relied on AS-levels to offer places, however […]

Let’s move towards graduation at 18

Tristram Hunt is right to suggest a move away from exams at 16-plus. But there’s a danger in his proposals for a 14-19 curriculum Most developed countries have graduation at 18. Few tests are taken at 16-plus and if they are, they are restricted to core subjects. The OECD found in 2011 that just 15 […]