

	Introduction to HE
	HE and Curriculum 2000
	Understanding HE's requirements
	Widening participation
	Key skills and HE
	Advising students on HE entry

	Print this page

HE and Curriculum 2000

Higher education’s entry requirements have influenced provision, perception and student take-up of Curriculum 2000 opportunities. Most higher education institutions (HEIs) have reviewed their admissions policies in the light of Curriculum 2000, and admission tutors are coming to terms with the new patterns of qualification achievement in their efforts to match applicants to places.

The HE sector is diverse, with some institutions and courses able to select students and others that recruit actively. HEIs are concerned to increase and widen participation, so applicants with any type or grade of level 3 qualification, at or above minimum requirements, will find a place.

‘The higher education section welcomes the broadening of the 16-19 curriculum represented by “Curriculum 2000”. While recognising the constraints placed upon schools and colleges in delivering courses in year 12, we hope that most are able to offer a relatively broad curriculum.

Each application is responded to on an individual basis. We hope that schools and colleges will enable their students to undertake the mix of qualifications which is in each individual’s own best educational interests, enabling them to achieve their full potential and encouraging them to proceed on to HE.

We encourage prospective students to develop key skills at pre-HE level. We welcome the certification of these, although we do not require applicants to have achieved this. Some institutions have chosen to continue to make their offers purely in terms of “AS” and “A” level grades rather than the new UCAS tariff points. For institutions which have chosen to use the tariff there may sometimes be a need to limit the proportion of the total points which may be made up from certificated achievement in key skills units, so that applicants have to offer a balanced programme of qualifications’.

(Catherine Orange, Chair, Admissions Practitioners’ Group, Academic Registrars’ Council)

Also see

> Basic and key skills
> Progression
> Breadth and depth in the 16-19 curriculum
> A brief guide to level 3 qualifications