Schools must publish everything from their truancy rates to the proportion of pupils with special needs, as well as examination results. So why should they object to telling the world how many sixth-formers get into university?

Parents would like to know, and universities might find it useful in deciding where to target their recruitment efforts. But what would the figures actually show? Almost certainly, the number of sixth-formers going to university will be in direct proportion to the A-level results that already appear in league tables. Universities use them to gauge whether applicants deserve special consideration, while parents can see which schools have the track record that makes a degree place more likely.

But every published statistic affects the way schools behave. They focus on teenagers on the boundaries of five high-grade GCSEs, for example, in order to improve the school’s position. In this case, the incentive will be to get as many students as possible into university, regardless of whether that is the best course of action for them. As Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter and chairman of the 1994 Group of universities, Professor Steve Smith can be forgiven for seeing higher education as every teenager’s aspiration. But some are better served by going straight to work. Teachers are sometimes accused of not encouraging their pupils to aim high enough. One of the objects of publishing leavers’ destinations is to address this problem. But schools should not be tempted to steer students towards higher education when they are not ready for it.

More than 90 per cent of those who take A levels go on to higher education, but too many drop out at the age of 16 or 17. For some schools in deprived areas, getting significant numbers of students into any university represents a triumph. In more affluent areas most leavers already go. There the question is which universities they are going to. Leading independent schools judge themselves by the number of leavers going to Oxbridge and a number of other universities. But it would be hard to know where to draw the line in official statistics.

Professor Smith is right that this important information should be put to more use, but not everything has to be published in league tables. Schools should be judged on the things for which they are directly responsible, like examination results, rather than their sixth-formers’ career decisions.

John O’Leary is editor of The Times Good University Guide 2009

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