The university admissions system belongs to a different era'

The other week, I found myself on the Jeremy Vine show having an argument with a university vice-chancellor.The issue was a report from Ucas, the university admissions service, showing that more than a third of 18-year-olds applying to university in 2018 received a form of unconditional offer before completing their qualifications.I’ve written before about how damaging this trend is. A headteacher in Bridlington told me of the devastating effect of students being given guaranteed places, sometimes with £1,000 bursaries dangled before them, to accept offers at certain institutions. She told me that many of her students then stopped attending school, instead finding themselves part-time jobs, and in some cases ending up on degree courses, such as marine biology, having gained – wait for it – two U grades and an E.As I explained to Jeremy Vine’s listeners: “This bums-on-seats approach isn’t good for the student, the school or the university.”The response of the vice-chancellor surprised me. He said that the reason universities had to make many unconditional offers was because teachers were so unreliable in predicting the grades students would finally get. Thus universities, the logic seemed to be, had to take matters into their own hands.