Leading article: Best is better than good

By proposing to divide the A grade at A-level into four tiers, the former chief inspector of schools Mike Tomlinson could at a stroke solve one of the most pressing problems facing university admissions staff. If his idea is accepted by ministers, universities will be told whether a candidate just scraped through to an A grade or whether they did fantastically well and got top marks. In fact, universities will be able to distinguish more closely than that because students with A grades will receive either an A1 (the best), an A2, an A3 or an A4.

Despite its obvious attraction to the top universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Edinburgh, the proposal has met with a mixed reaction. Those who opposed an earlier suggestion from Downing Street that there should be an A* grade at A-level on the grounds that it would devalue any lower-grade pass have voiced similar misgivings about the Tomlinson plan. On the other hand, teachers' leaders believe it is an improvement on an earlier idea that university admissions staff should have access to a candidate's marks. This, they argued, would lead to them giving too much credibility to a one-mark difference between two candidates. Fears have also been expressed that the Tomlinson plan would give high-flying candidates from independent schools more of an edge in applying for places at the most popular universities.

The truth is that all of the above are legitimate arguments. But we believe that, now that more than one in five of all candidates get an A grade pass, change is needed. The proposal will give admissions staff more material to use in distinguishing between candidates, and perhaps thereby avoid the introduction of too many new university entrance tests to select the best and brightest. However, it should not remove the need to look for alternative methods of assessing candidates, either through interviews or the adoption of US-style SAT tests - as favoured by the task force on university admissions being chaired by Professor Steven Schwartz. These alternative assessment methods are a means of gauging the potential talents of students who have had to struggle through adversity to obtain A-levels. They are needed to enable them to move on to university and to ensure that the Government's agenda of widening participation in higher education is met.