ISC welcomes consultation on post-qualification application

9 September 2005

Responding to the Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell's announcement of a further consultation on the possibility of the introduction of post-qualification application for university entrance, ISC General Secretary Jonathan Shephard said today:

"The independent sector has long supported the principle of PQA.  We have been actively involved, with the Secondary Heads Association, in exploring the practical implications of such a system. The principle that applicants should be judged on their actual - rather than predicted - grades makes obvious sense. ISC is anxious to widen access to higher education and we support anything that can be done to improve opportunities for pupils to achieve their full potential, whether they come from the maintained sector or the independent sector.

"Our concerns are twofold. First, PQA must not mean damaging cuts in the school teaching year which is short enough already. Second, at every stage of application, pupils must be judged according to their individual merit and potential, not as representatives of a sector.

"We reject the simplistic notion that widening access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds is necessarily the same as ‘giving more places to state school pupils'. Disadvantage crosses the educational sectors, and nearly a third of pupils in ISC schools receive help with fees. It would be a tragic irony if pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds educated in the independent sector found the scales weighted against them when they apply to university. Universities are robustly defending their right to choose on merit rather than by quota, and we support them in this approach."