The School Recommendation Program is aimed at reducing the impact and stress on students of COVID-19.

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Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the program would enable students to apply for most undergraduate courses and be made an offer earlier based on the recommendation of their school.

"The criteria for the program will include factors such as students' Year 11 results, an assessment of their capabilities and the perspective of those who have taught them," Mr Rockliff said.

"This acknowledges that it is the teachers who know their students best and can assess their readiness for university.

"I recognise there is significant anxiety among students and indeed have having a more reassuring pathway is certainly going to facilitate, I would hope, an easier pathway to university for our students."

UTAS vice-chancellor Professor Rufus Black said that after Easter, UTAS would send course guides to all Tasmanian year 12 students who would then select up to five courses they are interested in.

"And then we'll be inviting their schools to recommend their suitability for those programs and on the basis of that recommendation, we will make them make them an offer," Professor Black said.

"We trust the teachers of Tasmania very greatly. They have great insight into their students and their capabilities and we are very confident that their recommendations are a good guide to a student's likelihood of succeeding at university.

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"Anybody who applies through this program will get an offer from the University of Tasmania. So long as they finish year 12, they will either be offered a course, one of the five that they've selected, or they'll be offered a pathway course to enable them to get to where they want to go.

"The more students we can keep on a consistent learning pathway, the more we can minimise the chance of them falling out of the system."

Mr Rockliff said the program required students to complete year 12 but did not replace other mechanisms such as the ATAR.

"We need to be very empathetic and accommodating to all our students at this present time and provide the resources and the flexibility to ensure that learning can continue, even though it may well be in a different setting," he said.

The program is being supported by Catholic and independent schools in Tasmania.

Newstead College principal Dianne Freeman said the move would lesson the stress on students and parents.

I know many students and their parents are concerned about meeting university prerequisites and gaining required ATARs, and I am sure that this will lessen some of the anxiety people are feeling," Ms Freeman said.

"I think this gives our students hope and determination to keep studying even under these very different and challenging conditions."

St Patrick's College principal Tony Daley said the initiative was a "credible pathway" to university.

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