The debate about minimum entry requirements for university risks asking the wrong question (Students could be required to pass GCSE English to access university loans, 17 June).
At a time of persistent skills shortages and productivity challenges, policy should focus not on who can be excluded from higher education, but on how more people can develop the higher-level skills the country needs through a more integrated education system.
Many capable people of all ages do not follow conventional educational pathways. Some face disrupted schooling, caring responsibilities, disability, financial hardship, or the need to enter work early. Others simply develop the confidence and capability to succeed later in life. In the last 10 years alone, 25,000 people who began their studies with qualifications at GCSE level or below have gone on to complete an Open University qualification.
Open entry, when done by design, is not therefore incompatible with high standards. The Open University has always maintained rigorous academic expectations and is categorised as “gold standard” with the English teaching excellence framework. Course quality should be judged by teaching, student support, institutional standards and graduate outcomes, not by the grades students achieved before they arrived.
If policymakers are concerned about student outcomes, or indeed abuse of the system, the answer perhaps requires consideration of the current Education Act to ensure that concerns can be managed through strong regulation, data transparency and effective support. What we should not do is measure potential, at a single point in a person’s life, and use that to determine their future opportunities.
Prof Dave Phoenix
Vice-chancellor, Open University
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