Bradford University's vice-chancellor has welcomed plans which will require all universities to have "transparent" admissions policies to convince people they are not biased.

Universities Secretary John Denham announced the proposals yesterday as part of a redoubling of efforts to get 50 per cent of young people into higher education.

He said he wanted universities to show that their staff were implementing their admissions policies fairly and wants to see even closer links between universities and schools.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), at Warwick University, Mr Denham referred to the ongoing debate about university admissions.

He said: "On the one hand, universities that try to take a student's individual background, the challenges they have faced, into account, are liable to be accused of political correctness and social engineering," he said.

"But on the other, there are plenty of people prepared to take the fact of a disproportionate number of students from more privileged backgrounds at a particular university as prima facie evidence of snobbery and social bias on the part of admissions staff."

Mr Denham said: "While there is no evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with most admissions, ultimately the debate is corrosive of public confidence in the system."

He argued the answer lay in each university having a published admissions policy and being able to show it could equip all those involved in admissions to implement the policy accurately and fairly.

In response, Professor Mark Cleary, vice-chancellor of the University of Bradford, said he welcomed increased transparency throughout the university sector.

"We welcome increased levels of accountability and transparency in universities and we are currently working on an admissions policy that governs the whole institution," said Prof Cleary.

"We already publish admissions policies individually for our courses and these can be found on our website and in our prospectus.

"We are proud of our track record on recruiting students from state schools and we do a lot of work on access and widening participation with schools in the district to raise aspirations and encourage progression to higher education."

According to the latest statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 94 per cent of University of Bradford undergraduates are from state schools, and 44 per cent are said to be "working class".

David Eastwood, HEFCE chief executive has been asked to look at how each university could adopt its own "open and accountable" admissions system.

The Government is also concerned that decisions young people make relatively early in their schooling can narrow their subsequent university and career choices.

For example, taking double science GCSE rather than three separate sciences can make it harder to study medicine.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families is set to pilot ways of getting children even in primary schools to think about what career path they may eventually follow.