OFQUAL, the exams regulator, has given an ‘unprecedented glimpse’ into this year’s A-level results.
In a letter, Ofqual’s chief executive Isabel Nisbet took the unprecedented step of revealing that in 10 per cent of syllabuses the actual achievement of the top grade is different from expectations.
Some 260,000 candidates sat this year’s A-levels and more young people are applying for university, with admissions service Ucas reporting an 11.7 per cent rise in applications received this June, compared to the previous year.
But as many as 200,000 applicants – including tens of thousands shut out last year – could be denied places at university, it is being warned.
Last year, the regulators and awarding bodies agreed an approach whereby a statistical analysis of the 2009 A-level results would be used as an initial guide, when looking at how many candidates might get the new top grade.
Nisbet writes ‘..the outcomes for this year’s candidates have been determined by their achievement, not by a statistical straightjacket derived from last year’s A- level outcomes.’
Responding to ‘concerns’ from head teachers, Nisbet said that ‘in 10 per cent of the A2 specifications (syllabuses) this summer (21 out of a total of 214) the proportion awarded an A* was outside the tolerance range’.
Cambridge University has already had to turn away about 8,000 youngsters expected to get an A* grade and Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove says there will be a further review of A-levels.
Gove wants to see even tougher questions being set, with hopeful students being required to show ‘deep thought’ in their answers, and with universities being given a greater role in setting the questions.
Ofqual’s revelations came ahead of tomorrow’s official release of A-level results to Sixth Form students across the country.
A dramatic cut in the number of available university places is already being implemented and this autumn an official review into higher education funding, headed by ex-BP boss Lord Browne, is also expected to lead to a massive increase in student costs.
A survey conducted by Push, the university guide, shows that those who do get accepted by universities expect to complete their courses with debts of over £20,000.
This is the calculation being made before Lord Browne’s review into tuition fees is published.
After the review, the government is expected to press ahead with its plans to introduce a graduate tax, whilst retaining tuition fees that currently run at more than £3,000 a year.
Every year Push interviews students from every university in the country, talking to over 2,000 randomly-selected people, face-to-face.
From their survey, Push found that the projected debt of students on graduation is currently £23,263, with an even higher average amongst students in London, where projected debts are up to £47,945.
Comparing average debts since 2004, the Push guide goes on to predict that students entering university this autumn will graduate with debts of £24,700.
RBS-NatWest’s annual Student Living Index found students in the capital were earning, on average, £5,024 a year from part-time work.
The survey also found that students are increasingly choosing a university based on cost rather than the type or quality of course on offer.
In total 22 per cent of undergraduates now select their place of study based on factors such as the cost of living, proximity to home and the local earning potential.
More than 28 per cent of students receive less financial support from their parents, with 46 per cent not receiving any parental funding at all.
This is leaving them with the sole option of part-time work to boost their finances, while the average weekly student rent has risen to £65.30, a 4.3 per cent increase on last year.
Moreover, students are increasingly concerned about trying to minimise their debts, with more putting money from part-time jobs into savings and less being spent on socialising.
‘They are also facing up to the realities of the graduate job market,’ said the bank’s survey, with 76 per cent applying for internships and working instead of travelling.
Just 48 per cent expect to have a job in the first year after university, even if it is not their ideal job, the survey also found.
Despite these figures, students continue to apply to university in record numbers, whilst the government seeks to savagely cut funding for higher education and slash the number of places available.
Universities that ‘over-recruit’ can now receive a fine of £3,700 for every ‘extra’ student they allow through their doors.
The situation has prompted a rebuke for Universities and Science Minister David Willetts from Patrick Roach, deputy-general secretary of the NASUWT teachers union.
Roach said: ‘The number of state school students entering the university system is at record levels, and the vast majority of universities are very grateful for this.
‘The Coalition Government’s cuts are reducing rapidly the range of opportunities available for young people when they leave school, and this is putting more pressure on the university system.
‘The Coalition Government has cut back on promised additional investment for universities, which now means that fewer places are available than are needed.
‘Teachers in state schools are passionately concerned about the outcomes achieved by their pupils. It is deeply insulting to suggest that teachers don’t care. . .
‘Regrettably, provision is being cut back at a time when young people need it most.’
On Monday, the ‘Independent’ newspaper asked: ‘Who would want to be 18 today?’
This was after Professor David Green, vice-chancellor at the University of Worcester, said he was ‘absolutely certain’ that many of the people who are denied university places this year will have good qualifications, and that ‘in all previous years over the last 10 or 15 they would have got in with the same qualifications’.
‘Surely that is just plain wrong,’ he said.
Mary Curnock Cook, the chief executive of the University and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas), has urged more school leavers to consider taking up apprenticeships instead.
‘There won’t be an open-ended number of places, so there will be disappointed students,’ she said.
In the autumn the government is expected to make savage cuts of 35 per cent in government funding for universities, in addition to plans to introduce a graduate tax on top of tuition fees, pricing more students out.
But the suggestion that students should look for an apprenticeship instead is laughable: BT has just revealed that it received 24,000 applications for apprenticeships, but it only had 221 apprenticeships available – less than one apprenticeship for every 100 applicants!
More young people applied for the positions on the programme – which offers an annual salary of £11,000 to £14,000 – than the total applications to Oxford University, which attracted 17,000 applications for 3,000 places.
