根据国外媒体的报道，伯明翰大学成了英国首个降低2021年入学要求的大学。
伯明翰大学宣布：大部分本科课程的A-level入学要求将降低一个等级。
至于原因其实很简单，新冠疫情的影响太大了。
伯明翰大学是享有盛誉的罗素大学之一。目前罗素大学集团共包括24所英国名校：
包括6所金三角名校（剑桥大学、牛津大学、帝国理工学院、伦敦大学学院、伦敦政治经济学院、伦敦国王学院）
6所红砖大学（曼彻斯特大学、布里斯托大学、伯明翰大学、利兹大学、利物浦大学、谢菲尔德大学）
2所苏格兰大学（爱丁堡大学 、格拉斯哥大学）、
威尔士和北爱尔兰最高学府（卡迪夫大学、贝尔法斯特女王大学）
以及其他8所英格兰大学：伦敦玛丽女王大学、诺丁汉大学、南安普顿大学、纽卡斯尔大学、华威大学、杜伦大学、埃克塞特大学、约克大学。
在这篇报道中还提到：伯明翰大学降低明年入学要求的做法，可能会给其他大学带来压力，迫使它们效仿。
这样看来，伯明翰大学的做法仅仅是开端，其他学校会如何跟进，我们也拭目以待。
据了解，此次伯明翰大学对入学要求的调整将适用于大多数本科课程，但不包括预科课程，以及有外部监管的医学、牙科和口腔卫生、护理和理疗等学位课程。
校长伊斯特伍德表示：“我们希望通过将课程入学要求降低一个等级，可以缓解一些焦虑，并确保选择申请伯明翰大学的任何学生能获得入学的最佳机会。”
“这同时也是为2021年入学提供更大的灵活性，从而减轻新冠疫情给师生带来的压力。”
埃克塞特大学的社会流动性教授梅杰对伯明翰大学的做法表示支持。
梅杰说：“虽然各大学都在努力提高社会流动性，但它们面向的是同一批学生，可以看到降低分数是有竞争优势的。因此我怀疑大多数院校都会有类似的策略。”
《卫报》原文：
The University of Birmingham has become the first higher education institution to lower entry requirements for next year in recognition of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on A-level students.
The bar for the majority of undergraduate degree programmes at the prestigious Russell Group university is being reduced by one grade.
In a move likely to place pressure on other universities to follow suit, it linked the move directly to supporting sixth-form students due to sit their exams next summer.
Degree programmes that are not included are medicine, dentistry and dental hygiene, nursing, physiotherapy, and social work, where there is external regulation, as well as the university’s foundation year and degree apprenticeship programmes.
“We recognise the need to adapt our admissions approach for this year given the extraordinary disruption affecting these students and their schools and the fact that many are likely to experience more than a year of interrupted learning by the time they sit their exams next summer,” said the university’s vice-chancellor, Prof Sir David Eastwood.
“We have considered what we can do as a university to recognise and reward potential, mitigate some of the educational challenges as result of Covid, and reduce some of the pressure on students and teachers at this challenging time. Providing greater flexibility in our admissions for 2021 entry is one such area.”
He said he hoped reducing the entry requirements would “alleviate anxieties”.
The move was welcomed by Dr Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, but he said third level institutions also needed to work to lower grades for disadvantaged students, who had felt the brunt of a disproportionate impact from the pandemic.
“Even though the pandemic will have a higher impact on school pupils up and down the country, it appears that grades will actually be similar, if not better than previous years,” he said.
While universities were trying to improve social mobility, he said they were competing for the same students, and moves such as Birmingham’s had to be seen in that context.
“There is a marketplace here and I suspect that most institutions will have similar strategies. So you can see there is a competitive advantage of lowering grades.”
The University of Birmingham has said the initiative also applies to its “contextual offer-making” – where institutions take into account factors that can restrict a student’s achievement at school.
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