University Grading Changes

Universities across Britain are trying out new grade-cards in the hope that they can replace the 200-year old 'class' system with something fairer for students and more useful to employees. The system will focus more on extra-curricular activities, giving students credit for running and taking part in societies.

It's good that the universities involved, including - among others - Manchester and Newcastle Universities, are attempting to recognise the achievements of their students outside of the classroom. But basing a student's university degree on their extra curricular activities is utterly misguided and misses the main problem.

Employers have always looked for activities outside of the classroom. It is no use having a 2.1 in Business Management if you've never actually managed anything, or handled a business. These are skills that can't be picked up in the classroom, but can be picked up running a student society.

Whether it's a Neighbours Society, or the Theatre Society, if you are involved in them you will exhibit skills employers want. There is more skill in organising a successful bar crawl than there is in getting a 2.1 in an essay.

But rewarding un-academic activities with an academic grade will not solve anything – all it would do is corrupt the value of a degree.

You are at university to learn stuff. Generally stuff that you will never need to know again, but that's not the point. Students go to university to stretch their brains, to think and to develop academically.

If you're thinking of going to university for the 'life experience', don't. Go and have a life instead. Go travelling. Read something you actually want to, rather than something you're told to. Get a job. Get some useful skills. Do something, rather than pontificate and procrastinate.

The problem of university grading lurks instead in the cramped grade boundaries. Any dumb-ass can get a third. With not much effort at all you can get a 2.2. Put in a bit more and you get a 2.1.

But here's the kicker. Take me, for example. I'll probably end up with a 2.1. If I work fantastically hard, I'll get a first. Probably something in the low 70s (almost certainly no higher as I'm an arts student, and a first at around 72.5% is regarded as 'stratospheric'). But the difference in effort between my getting a 68% and a 72% is massively more than 4%.

Likewise, the effort of me getting a 68% compared to a 62% is way more than 6%. Both are 2.1s, but they sure as heck ain't the same level. University grades just don't reflect the effort put in or the true ability of students.

There is more to university than academia, but it should always be the focus. Giving academic credit for social activities defies the point of university. Instead universities should introduce a broader boundary for each class, rewarding those who have put in more effort, but not quite reached the levels of the higher class.

This is fairer on students and fairer on employers. It would put pride back into getting a 'good' 2.1, rather than the feeling of stunning averageness, and allow employers to see who is brightest. But they'll probably end up going for the guy who has actually done something. That'll be the president of Neighbours Soc, then.

1968 and all that...

“The spirit of ’68 is still alive, man! Dude, man the barricades – we’re having a sit-in!”

200 students at Manchester University recently held a retro protest, barricading themselves in a university building, 1968 style.

They wanted a few things, of course: to end tuition fees, stop the university laying off staff, increase contact time with teachers and increase university accountability, etc. etc. Their aims were simple, their name revolutionary: “Reclaim the Uni!”

After a few hours of sitting about, the police broke up the protest, a fire alarm went off, and everyone went home. Radical! The university released a statement blaming the government for cutbacks, and all was well in the North West.

Daniel Lee, one of the organisers of the protest, however, was still not a happy chappy: “This is just the first step in a long line of steps… We’ve done this, and we can do it again, and do other things, until our demands are met.” Students of the world, unite!

Lee’s proclamation would have brought a bout of misty-eyed nostalgia to many of a certain generation. ‘Ah, those were the good old days,’ the 1968er would mutter, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘Things mattered then. 1968 changed the world’.

But it didn’t. And no matter how many sit-ins are staged today, they won’t make a difference either.

In Paris ’68, students staged sit-ins throughout the Sorbonne’s campus and triggered similar protests in universities across Europe. But things were a little different back then.

It was not a case of a couple of hundred students, sitting down until the police told them to get lost. Rather, it was a few thousand rushing into the street, hurling paving slabs at the police and setting fire to cars.

Not only this, but vast swathes of the French workforce also went on strike to show solidarity with the student body (but mainly because they were French, the weather was nice, and they fancied a day or so off).

It was bedlam. Society was in a state of flux. Revolution really was in the air. And what changed? Nothing. Zip. Nada. The right-wing Charles De Gaulle (certainly not one of history’s progressives) was re-elected the same year with a considerable majority.

France went back to work (until the next strike) and the ‘revolutionary’ students went on to become a mixture of doctors, lawyers and, in the case of their leader, a Green MEP.

The protests did achieve very minor gains for students. University administrations make some concessions, but these were basic at best. Prior to the protests, for example, male and female students were just about banned from visiting each other’s dormitories. This rule was subsequently abolished

Basically, after 1968 universities in France became a bit less authoritarian and stuffy.

So, what was the result of weeks of strikes, riots and sit-ins? The students had earned the right to stay the night at their partners’, and gowns were no longer worn at graduations. What, then, could 200 students in Manchester achieve in three hours? Considerably less, I’d wager.

The NUS recently endorsed the idea of university occupations in the event of an invasion of Iran. I doubt very much, however, that 500 students occupying the humanities building would force Gordon Brown into calling off any air strikes.

Even if every student in the country handcuffed themselves to radiators in the university buildings nothing would change. Why? Because we’re students.

We’re meant to disagree with whatever policy the current government employs. We’re meant to want everything for free and be a bit lefty. We’re meant to be idealistic, oppose wars and hope for peace.

And we’ll do this for three years before becoming an accountant, complaining about taxes and moaning about the next generation of ‘bloody students’.

In other words, we’re entirely predictable. And until we stop being so unoriginal no one will listen – no matter how we protest.