reports

Report of the Council on the examination requirements for matriculation and on procedures

The COUNCIL begs leave to report to the University as follows.

1. In this Report the Council proposes replacing the general examination requirements for matriculation with subject-specific requirements.

2. The general examination requirements for matriculation have been the University's normal minimum entrance expectations for entry to its undergraduate courses. (Separate provision is made for affiliated students, that is undergraduates who qualify by their previous first degrees for entrance to the second year of Cambridge undergraduate courses.) The matriculation requirements have applied equally to home and overseas students. They have required that a student should be qualified by (or by the equivalent of) at least two General Certificate of Education (GCE) A level passes, and three General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), AS or A2 passes (GCSE 'pass' being grades A to C). The qualifications must have included one in English, one in a language other than English, and one in mathematics or a scientific subject. The requirements have been overarching, in that they have applied irrespective of the applicant's chosen course.

3. The original purpose of the requirements can be summarized as:

(a)	to seek means for the University to assure itself that students coming from secondary education should have a basic general education and, in particular, that the late years of specialization which is possible in sixth forms in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland should not be to the detriment of breadth in basic fields;
(b)	to ensure that students whose first language is not English can demonstrate competence in English;
(c)	to provide some guarantee to the University and to external stakeholders of the probity of College admission arrangements.

4. In the case of UK students, fulfilment of the requirements is normally through GCSE, GCE or the Scottish equivalents. Other qualifications have been approved by the Matriculation Board or have been listed in the Ordinances. A corpus of information and experience about qualifications, particularly awarded outside the UK, was built up through successive Secretaries of the Matriculation Board. Students who did not have one or more of the basic qualifications were eligible to be granted allowances by that Board. For UK students a common reason for such an allowance was that some schools have permitted students to drop, for example, a language before GCSE. Mature students often only needed an allowance because their basic secondary qualifications had been taken a long time ago. The allowances by the Board were routinely given on the application of College Tutors.

5. Cambridge is now the only university in the UK with general requirements of this kind. General practice across the sector, including Oxford and the remaining Russell Group universities, is to require evidence of a broad educational background and then to publish entry requirements and preferences on a subject by subject basis.

6. The Council is now of the view that these, hitherto generally applicable, examination requirements and the arrangements for seeking exemption from some part of them are no longer appropriate or serve the University well. Current experience suggests that prospective applicants and their advisers find the concept of general requirements unclear and that they act as a deterrent to otherwise well-qualified students, particularly in the maintained sector. They can act as an obstacle to the University's Widening Participation and Access aspirations. In particular, the language requirement for all entrants is problematic at a time when less than half of school pupils take a modern European language at GCSE level. Whilst acknowledging that this situation may change over time, the Council is of the view that moving to a subject-specific approach (which would still allow a language to be required where appropriate) would provide a form of matriculation which was more flexible and responsive to future changes in secondary education. Applicants whose first language is not English would still be required to pass, at a stated level, one of a number of prescribed English Language qualifications.

7. Furthermore, the administrative arrangements underpinning matriculation have in recent years been amended such that academic decisions have increasingly been decentralized. The long-standing paper-based system for dealing with allowances has been simplified to reduce the burden on Colleges and on the University Offices. The paper system was devised at a time when the hard copy information produced was the principal resource for collecting information about examination performance in systems other than the UK. It was the basis on which the Matriculation Board issued successive notes of guidance to Colleges about examinations, which, unlike national reference material, were specifically tailored to Cambridge experience, standards, and requirements. However, the situation has now changed in that intercollegiate co-operation in the sharing of information about overseas qualifications is stronger. The collection by the University of such information, therefore, is no longer a priority. There is no longer the need for routine transfer of such information between a College and the matriculation office.

8. Colleges should now be empowered to decide whether exemption should be given from a particular aspect of the examination requirements for matriculation, although this will be subject to a right of review by the University in particular instances and generally (but without prejudice to any case going through). This system has already been operating experimentally and has proved successful. Colleges, through CamSIS, the student information service, when fully available, and otherwise, are themselves generating a corpus of information about UK and other secondary examinations which will be available for analysis to the University and the Colleges collectively for policy purposes.

9. The Council, with the concurrence of the General Board and the Undergraduate Admissions Committee, therefore now makes two principal proposals:

(a)

that new regulations for matriculation requirements should be approved replacing the present regulations entirely. The new regulations would give general approval to the principal national and international qualifications and would indicate, through a Schedule, the means of satisfying the examination requirements for matriculation.

(b)

that the administrative procedures should be simplified by making provision for Colleges to satisfy themselves on behalf of the University either that the requirements are fulfilled, or that for good cause there is reason for an individual to be exempted. There would be no need for the individual student to be aware of the matter, or for the details to be set out in the University's prospectus or other promotional material (although these will continue to provide detailed advice about each Tripos's entry requirements).

10. One effect of these changes would be that the Matriculation Board would no longer need to continue in existence. The Council therefore proposes that the regulations for that Board (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 126) be rescinded, and that any continuing functions in this area be assigned to the General Board. The Council wishes to pay tribute to the diligent service of the members of the Board and its Secretaries.

11. In two instances the circumstances of students who matriculate under special conditions, which are specified in the existing regulations (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 171, Regulation 4(e) and (f)), would not be directly covered by the proposed new regulations. The Council therefore proposes that, exercising its existing powers under Statute B, I, 1(e), it should add references to the schedule of classes of persons qualified to matriculate (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 171) as follows:

(f)	persons approved as clinical students by the authorities of the School of Clinical Medicine for admission to courses leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery;
(g)	members of an institution within the Cambridge Theological Federation who at the end of their first year of studying in an institution with the Federation have passed the Qualifying Examination in Theology for Ministry (with a view to becoming candidates for the B.Th. Degree).

The Council will make this addition from the date when the recommendations of this Report are approved.

12. A draft schedule (Schedule I) has been attached to the proposed new regulations for matriculation requirements which takes account of current essential requirements published in the Undergraduate Prospectus. The Faculty Boards are being consulted about whether further essential requirements for any Tripos should be listed.

13. The Council therefore recommends as follows:

That the regulations for the Matriculation Board (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 126) be rescinded and that the examination requirements for matriculation (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 171) be replaced by the following new regulations and schedules.

EXAMINATION REQUIREMENTS FOR MATRICULATION

1. A student shall satisfy the examination requirements for matriculation if satisfying the requirements set out in Schedule I for the course for which he or she has been offered admission or the same subjects in other qualifications judged by the admitting College to be equivalent; in taking each decision a College shall have regard to the schedule of qualifications attached to these regulations (Schedule II) and to such advice as may be issued from time to time by the General Board.

2. If a candidate is not in the judgement of his or her admitting College completely qualified as above, but the College believes that the candidate is fit to be admitted as a candidate for honours, the College may deem the candidate to be qualified. In taking such a decision a College shall have regard to such advice as is issued from time to time by the General Board.

3. A College shall supply such information about compliance with the examination requirements for matriculation or about a decision taken under Regulation 2 in the report of a student or students admitted as the General Board shall require in any particular instance or generally.

4. The General Board shall have the authority to amend the Schedules to these regulations.

DRAFT SCHEDULE I

Examination requirements for matriculation

(subject to amendment by the General Board under Regulation 4)

1. In order to be admitted, candidates must show evidence of a broad educational background and good standards of literacy and numeracy.¹ A high standard of performance in three General Certificate of Education (GCE) A level subjects (or equivalent) is normally required. The University does not have any formal requirement for any particular subjects in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), save for those indicated in section 2 below.

2. Eligibility to matriculate for admission to the following Triposes shall require a pass in the subject(s) specified:

SCHEDULE II

Examination requirements for matriculation: qualifying awards

(subject to amendment by the General Board under Regulation 4)

Qualifications awarded by UK public examining bodies

GCE: A level (and AS)
GCSE
Scottish Certificate of Education
Welsh Baccalaureate
Cambridge Pre-U
Other qualifications of comparable standard awarded by UK public examination bodies (e.g. IGCSE; vocational A levels)
Other qualifications issued by UK public examining bodies (e.g. Certificate of Proficiency in English (Cambridge Assessment), IELTS

Other Member States of the European Union

Normal secondary leaving examination and awards, qualifying the holder for admission to university in the country of issue (e.g. French Baccalaureate, German Abitur)
European Baccalaureate

Other European countries

Equivalent qualifications to the above

International qualifications

International Baccalaureate

Other countries

Qualifications judged by the admitting College to be substantially equivalent to the above (e.g. US Scholastic Aptitude Test, including Advanced Placement)

1 GCSE passes at grade C and above in English Language and in a Mathematics or Science Subject would normally satisfy these requirements, as would an appropriate level of attainment in other qualifications such as the Scottish Certificate of Education or the European and International Baccalaureates.