Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham will direct the nation’s top education panel to focus on university admissions after a Fairfax Media investigation revealed that the practice of admitting students with lower than the minimum Australian Tertiary Admission Rank into university courses was endemic, writes Eryk Bagshaw for The Sydney Morning Herald.

The move will see the Higher Education Standards Panel examine options for improving the transparency of student admissions policies. The panel will have up to a year to work on a new university standards framework, which will take effect from January 2017.

University vice-chancellors have since called for the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, or ATAR, admissions process to be scrapped, describing it as “inefficient” and “unfair” despite admitting record numbers of students through the system.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/atar-crackdown-higher-education-panel-to-crack-down-on-university-admission-standards-20160208-gmp1s2.html#ixzz3zqXGxdx6