Universities may not move or admit first-year students placed by the Ministry

The letter opens by restating how placement works. Students who sit the secondary school leaving examination and earn a university entrance result are assigned to universities by the Ministry itself, on the regular programme and on the remedial one. Nothing about that part is new.

The Ministry then says it ran a study to confirm that placed students were actually studying at the university they had been sent to, and found universities moving students between institutions without its knowledge and without the authority to do it.

The circular gives two reasons. Moving students between universities undoes the mix of backgrounds that a national placement produces, which the Ministry describes as a harm to the shared national character of the universities. It also gives some families a result that others, following the published route, cannot get, which the Ministry treats as a breach of the right to equality and of fair procedure. On that basis the practice is prohibited in any circumstance, and the letter warns that university leaders found breaking the decision will answer for it.

The letter is addressed to all public universities. Copies went to the offices that would notice a placement being worked around:

• The Minister's office
• The State Minister's office for the higher education development sector
• The State Minister's office for general education
• The Education Assessment and Examinations Service
• The Education and Training Authority