Schools would be assessed on how many students they send to university under proposals being put to an influential body set up by the Prime Minister.

University entry data could be used to create rankings of schools according to the number of their pupils who reach higher education.

Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, who is in charge of higher education on the National Council for Educational Excellence (NCEE), will make recommendations at a meeting chaired by Gordon Brown in early July.

But teachers’ leaders said that this policy would lead inevitably to some schools being ranked lower through no fault of their own.

In the long term this could put unfair pressure on low-achieving schools, particularly if they were then shunned by parents keen to send their children to university.

Professor Smith said: “The proposal is that the Higher Education Statistics Agency database will contain information on what school every student came from.” He said ministers were concerned about the low numbers of teenagers from poor backgrounds reaching higher education.

“The Government is still scared about what is happening. The socio-economic figures are stubborn and not changing — or improving, but not at the rate the Government wants.”

Professor Smith acknowledged that schools would probably oppose his recommendation.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said: “This will be yet another stick to beat schools with. The information is not relevant and won’t tell people anything.

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “This is utter nonsense. Many young people may be perfectly well equipped to go to university but choose to take other routes to further their educational skills.”

However, John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was a “realistic proposal to level the playing field for students applying to university, from schools with very different levels of experience of the application system”.

Dr Dunford said such data should be — and often was — used by universities to take into account a student’s background.

It was reported this week that leading universities, including Edinburgh, St Andrews, Cambridge and Bristol made allowances for pupils from low-performing schools.

In some cases they will admit such students with lower A-level grades than middle-class students, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the Sunday Times.

The NCEE was set up by Gordon Brown last summer, with the task of developing a world-class education system in England, by encouraging schools, parents, industry and higher education to work together.

Professor Smith’s comments came after he addressed a conference of school and university leaders, on developing partnerships between secondary and higher education to widen participation at universities. He said: “The widening participation debate needs to focus less on which universities students attend, and more on the vast number of able students who never progress to higher education.

“There is a massive socioeconomic gap up to the age of 16. GCSE attainment is the determining factor as to whether a young person continues in education.”

Professor Smith said universities needed to engage with primary schools, because often it was too late to interest children in higher education once they were at secondary school.

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