A-level failures' places defended

LOUISE JURY

The new universities went on the defensive yesterday against claims they are admitting hundreds of students without any A-level qualifications, as Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education, announced she would be investigating whether standards were being lowered.

The universities said, however, that some students might be awarded a foundation year place - designed to prepare them for a full degree - in the subjects of science, engineering and technology where the Government had demanded action to tackle a shortage of graduates.

The row began with a misunderstanding of how foundation courses worked, the universities said. The students progressed to a full degree only if they succeeded in their foundation year.

But Sir Rhodes Boyson, the former education minister and ex-chairman of the National Council for Education Standards, called for no one to be admitted "without at least two good A-levels". He went on: "If students cannot get the exams, they are not fit for university and are exploiting the taxpayer."

Mrs Shephard said the question would be addressed in the Government's review of higher education. "I would be very concerned if any practice were to dilute the standard of a degree from British universities."

Defending the universities, Professor Michael Brown, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Leicester's De Montfort University, said there were good reasons to take the students if government appeals for more science and engineering graduates were to be met.

"Our regulations don't allow us to take anybody on to a degree course without two A-levels or their equivalent and we wouldn't want to anyway," he said. But with government encouragement in 1991, it set up a science and engineering foundation course to provide a route into those subjects for people without the appropriate schooling or science background. "It is absolutely clear and above board and straightforward."

Dr Henry Fitzhugh, of Shef-field Hallam University, said a very small number of places on its foundation courses went to A-level failures.

"You get a lot of cases of people with extenuating circumstances, where the mother died or a teacher left. A university like us which is pledged to the concept of access will lend a sympathetic ear. But it is about 20 out of 20,000 students in the university, which is not exactly a great shift to the system."