13th May 2016 1:00
By Blue Tutors
Consumer group Which? Has recently raised concerns that many 16 year olds are not given the information necessary when choosing subjects to study at A’ level. According to their survey many pupils asked said that they wished they had studied different subjects, and that their schools had informed them of which subjects would be the most use to them. Choices of A’ level subjects have a significant impact on the subjects that students are able to apply to study at university, with many students unaware that they are limited their options with their A’ Level choices. The Russell Group has said that it is crucial that better information be made available to students, but who should be responsible for this?
In principle this is information that schools should make clearly available to all students, ensuring that they are counselled on their choices and understand what options are available to them. However, many schools do not do this, often because they themselves do not understand the implications of these choices. Whilst the Which? survey results may cause anger towards schools providing inadequate information, the reality is that universities’ approaches to subject choices vary, and the process of choosing subjects is more complicated that it appears. For example, a school advisor could be forgiven for advising a student to take Law A’ level if they want to study law at university, but many universities say they prefer students not to have studied the subject before. Under these circumstances, how can students get the information they need?
While schools should do a reasonable amount of research when advising students, universities should also make their application processes far more transparent, especially if their requirements are not intuitive. We currently have a system in which university requirements are complex, privileged information which is only available to select people. Private tutors can definitely help shed light on this to their students, talking through their options and explaining that many top universities prefer students not to have studied subjects such as Law and Sociology, even if these are the courses that they are interested in taking. However, it is the responsibility of universities to ensure that schools are provided with adequate information with which to provide guidance to their students; otherwise they will be missing out on thousands of potential students, and depriving pupils of the opportunities that should be available to them.