UK: Admissions must be more transparent, says Denham

The government will push universities to produce admission procedures that deliver what they say "on the can" as it presses to widen participation in higher education, says Universities Secretary John Denham, reports The Guardian. Denham ruled out telling universities how to run their admission procedures, but insisted that the government had a role to play in encouraging more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to access elite universities by encouraging more transparent admissions criteria.

With universities often overwhelmed with applications from A grade students, other processes for selection often come into play. Denham said there was no place for "hidden mechanisms" in the process of selecting students for oversubscribed courses.

"If there is an issue we need to look at in admission procedures, it is where there is a gap between an institution's stated procedure and the actual process," he said at an event hosted by Oxford University, which debated where the responsibility lies for widening participation.
Full report on The Guardian site