University bosses promise to stop making ‘unethical’ offers

EIGHT universities have stopped or will stop making ‘conditional unconditional’ offers to prospective students.

Seven others have pledged to review their use of the offers which guarantee a place to students but only if they choose the university as their first option.

The move comes after education secretary Damian Hinds wrote to 23 of them, urging them to end the ‘unethical practice’. He recently challenged the sector to do more to end the use of essay-writing services, curb artificial grade inflation and stop using questionable recruitment techniques.

In March, Mr Hind called on PayPal to stop processing transactions for essay mills. The Department for Education said the online payment platform agreed to do so, which will reduce the number of cheats.