The higher education minister, Kim Howells, today made a forceful attempt to "calm the nerves" of the top universities over the government's college admissions policies claiming: "There is no admissions conspiracy." He also promised to keep an "open mind" over the future of the benchmarks set for university admissions, the issue which led one Oxford don last week to challenge the Department for Education and Skills to "take its tanks off Oxford's lawns".
The row over admissions pits the Russell group of elite universities, many of whom are struggling to meet benchmarks for the proportion of state school students they admit, against the government's "widening participation" strategy to get a more representative cohort of students into higher education. Mr Howell's speech, to an audience of university admissions officers at a conference in London, follows an attack on the government launched by the Oxford chancellor Chris Patten yesterday. The former Conservative minister accused ministers of making "appalling" attempts to force universities to admit more state school pupils.
He told the Universities UK conference on higher education admissions: "This government does not have a back door admissions agenda. We are not in the business of using universities to socially engineer our higher education landscape. Admissions are a matter for universities. "We do not have any admission targets. We will not fine universities who miss their benchmarks."
The debate follows a row over the benchmarks, which were this year changed, leaving Oxford and Cambridge with the toughest increases. Each now expected to take 77% of entrants from state schools compared with their former targets of 69 and 68% respectively. Cambridge currently takes 57.6% state school pupils and Oxford 55.4%. This year the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which sets the targets, switched from using the level grades to the tariff used by the university application service Ucas. Universities say that this forces them to take pupils from state schools with predicted high points, over those with the right subject grades.
Mr Howells' promise that he was looking into the way the statistics are compiled, and would keep an "open mind" in response to a question from the audience at today's conference casts new questions over their future use. "I am looking at the moment at the way in which these results are gathered and published and the rest. I can't give you an informed answer because I have been too busy trying to dispel those myths," he said. "But I'm fully prepared to look at this question. I have got a completely open mind about this and I'm going to look at it."
Last week the Trinity College Oxford master, Michael Beloff, suggested that Oxford could go private within 15 years in response to the growing pressures from the government. He urged the government to use a "carrot not stick" approach.
Mr Howells also attempted to sweep away rising anxiety about the role of the Office for Fair Access (Offa), which is being introduced as a result of the higher education act which introduced top-up fees. The head of Offa is due to be announced tomorrow. It will have powers to prevent universities from charging the full rate of £3,000 per student per year and also penalties of up to £500,000. But Mr Howells said these penalties would not be applied "automatically" where universities missed their benchmarks. "As long as Offa is satisfied that the milestones are stretching and ambitious and that the university has done all it can to meet the milestones they will be allowed to increase fees," he said.
TARGETS for admission of students from state schools and poorer families to university are likely to be scrapped by the Government, The Times has learnt. Ministers are to review the "benchmarks" in the wake of hostility from elite universities to the sharp increase in their targets for recruitment of state students.
Cambridge and Oxford have said that their benchmarks are no longer attainable after being told to increase their state intakes to 77 per cent from 68 and 69 per cent respectively. The Russell Group of 19 leading universities is meeting this month to determine its response.
The move comes as Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, names the £100,000-a-year director of the new Office for Fair Access (Offa) today. The director, dubbed "OffToff" by critics, will approve tuition fee increases for universities that sign agreements to boost applications by students from state schools and working-class backgrounds.
This move is likely to cause uproar among backbench Labour MPs who oppose the increase in fees to £3,000 a year from 2006. They see the benchmarks as a means of putting pressure on top universities to accept more state students at the expense of candidates from fee-paying schools. Ministers have been stung by the ferocity of the response from universities to the performance indicators published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) last month.
The backlash has caused the Department for Education and Skills to question the value of the benchmarks, particularly now that universities will have to set their own access "milestones" in individual negotiations with Offa. The statistics agency has adopted the points system used by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas). This dramatically expanded the pool of students that Hesa considered eligible to apply to the best universities, even though most did not meet the necessary academic standards. An analysis at Cambridge showed that 55,104 students had amassed 360 Ucas points, the equivalent of three A-level A grades. But only 16,984 had achieved the standard expected at Cambridge.
The review was welcomed by Professor Michael Sterling, chairman of the Russell Group and Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University. He said: "That is encouraging. The use of Ucas points moved the goalposts enormously. That was a mistake." Baroness Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, representing the higher education sector, said: "I think it's sensible to look at it again."
Kim Howells told vice-chancellors yesterday, in his first speech as Higher Education Minister: "I am looking at the moment at the way in which these results are gathered and published... I'm prepared to look at this question." In what he called a "myth-busting" response to the row over the targets, Dr Howells said: "Universities must be the masters of their own admissions policies."
He noted that universities had been keen to use the benchmarks before they became so controversial. He insisted that there was "no admissions conspiracy" by the Government. "This Government does not have a back door admissions agenda," he said. Dr Howells said ministers regarded the gap in university entry by higher and lower social classes as unacceptably wide. The solution was a "triple A approach" to raise attainment in schools, tackle low aspirations in students, and boost applications from families without a history of higher education. But interference in admissions was "strictly off the menu".
However, Professor Sterling said he was concerned by Dr Howells's remark that universities would have to satisfy Offa that their targets were "stretching and ambitious" before being allowed to raise fees. He would be seeking assurances about the yardsticks that Offa would use in discussions with universities to determine whether they were being sufficiently ambitious in seeking more state school and working-class applicants.
.... Universities had to be "the masters of their own admissions procedures", he [Kim Howells] added.
However, the new Office for Fair Access (Offa) could refuse universities the right to charge top-up fees of £3,000 a year from 2006 if they are deemed to have failed to make efforts to widen participation. They would have to sign an access agreement setting out how they intend to attract more applications from under-represented groups. "As long as Offa is satisfied ... the university has done all it can to meet the milestones, they will be allowed to increase fees," he said.
Universities could also face financial penalties of up to £500,000 if they failed to convince the regulator they had abided by the agreement.
Mr Howells' speech was welcomed by Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe, the chief executive of Universities UK, who said the benchmarks had "caught most of us by surprise". She added: "I think it is sensible to look at the figures again to see if they should be changed... I am sure that HESA [the Higher Education Statistics Agency - the government agency that produced them] would welcome that."
Kim Howells, the higher education minister, tried to calm the storm over charges that the government is seeking "social engineering" in universities, with apparently little success.
The government's drive to ensure fairer access for pupils from poorer backgrounds has provoked a chorus of complaints from university heads, to which Chris Patten, chancellor of Oxford University, yesterday added his voice.
"What the government is trying to do is to press universities to make up for the inadequacies in parts of our secondary education system," he said. "And what that means is they are pressing for a lowering of standards. It is as brutally simple as that." If Oxford continued to find its funding squeezed and the government dictating its admissions, "if it comes to it we would have to move in the direction of the Ivy League" and go private.
In a speech to a "fair admissions" conference held by Universities UK, the umbrella body, Mr Howells denied the government was attempting social engineering and planned to punish universities that did not meet quotas. The drive was "not about universities having to accept people who are not qualified for, nor capable of benefiting from, higher education programmes", he said.
There would be no quotas dictating how many students to accept from lower incomes or state schools and universities would not be penalised financially for failing to meet the benchmark figures for the proportion they took from state schools. The benchmarks, which show that Oxford, for example, takes 55 per cent of state school pupils against its target of 77 per cent, were simply a device to help universities plan.
Universities would, however, have to reach agreements with new Office for Fair Access, setting out their ambitions and how to achieve them. "It will be up to universities to decide where they want to get to and by which measure," Mr Howells said. They could use the benchmarks or create their own. "Whatever they choose, they will not automatically be penalised by Offa for failing to meet their milestones. As along as Offa is satisfied that the milestones are stretching and ambitious, and that the university has done all it can to meet the milestones, they will be allowed to increase fees."
That, however, still left the possibility of universities losing their right to charge higher fees, said Professor Michael Sterling, chairman of the Russell Group of top research universities. It also created an incentive for universities not to set ambitious targets for increasing participation. There remained a serious threat that admission standards would be lowered. "If the students are not adequately qualified ...we are setting them up to fail. So just admitting them for the sake of meeting a particular target is a dangerous road to go down."
The government will today announce the name of the person who will head the controversial admissions watchdog the Office for Fair Access (Offa). The newly-appointed boss will face some hostility from Russell group vice-chancellors who are anxious about the new boss's powers to curb their power to charge top-up fees. One said, ominously: "We've given notice that we're watching."
A departmental announcement is expected at 9.30 this morning, along with further details of the remit of the new organisation. Offa will have the power to stop universities charging top-up fees and issue penalties of up to £500,000 where institutions are not making enough effort to meet the provisions of their access agreements, which they negotiate with Offa. Kim Howells, the higher education minister, explicitly said yesterday that this would not be automatic.
Tension among university bosses has been rising ahead of today's announcement, especially with the escalation this week of the row over new benchmarks for the proportion of state educated pupils each university admits. Mr Howells yesterday sought to dampen the growing row over admissions following an outburst from the former Conservative party chairman Chris Patten who accused the government of an "appalling" attempt to pressurise universities into using their admissions to "socially engineer" their intake.
Mr Howells told the Universities UK conference on admissions in London yesterday: "There is no admissions conspiracy. This government does not have a back door admissions agenda. We are not in the business of using universities to socially engineer our higher education landscape. Admissions are a matter for universities. "We do not have any admission targets. We will not fine universities who miss their benchmarks."
Last month the government issued new benchmarks leaving some universities with significantly higher targets. Meanwhile some universities claim a reform to the way they are measured - by Ucas points rather than grades - has also made the process harder.
The issue is largely one for the prestigious Russell group of elite universities, which in general have the highest intakes from private school pupils. Of these, Oxford and Cambridge will be most heavily hit. Each is now expected to take 77% of entrants from state schools compared with their former targets of 69 and 68% respectively. Cambridge currently takes 57.6% state school pupils and Oxford 55.4%.
Last night's comments from the Russell group reflected the high stakes they have in who becomes the new head of Offa. Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge, said that Mr Howells' comments had been reassuring, but added: "Until the director of Offa has been appointed and he or she have put their stamp on the current draft guidelines none of us are going to be reassured. We shall see."
Michael Sterling, vice chancellor of Birmingham and chair of the Russell group added: "I don't yet truly understand the true purpose of Offa. We can't understand that until the announcement of the new head is made, but I think the whole sector is waiting to see if there are any changes to it. We've given notice that we're watching."