Birmingham University rejects the Guild’s ‘No Detriment Policy’ recommendations

The University of Birmingham has rejected all the Guild recommendations for  a true ‘No Detriment’ policy for final year students, after widespread criticism of the university’s current approach.

The recommendations which were rejected would have taken into consideration the difficult circumstances that students are facing to study in and allowed adjustments to their grades.

The policy included “a 5% increase for all dissertations/final year projects, an expansion of the grade boundaries by 0.5% and give students a chance to do assessments to improve their 80 credits.” The policy also included “a guarantee that no student will graduate with less than their trajectory.”

This comes after the Guild of Students received over 750 student feedback responses regarding the No Detriment Policy. The university’s current approach has been criticised for no safety net, and leaves the possibility for students achieving less than their trajectory.

Joshua Williams, the current Guild President at the university commented that “we will continue to fight to ensure the student voice is listened to and respected.”

The university’s Senior Education Team, responded to these policy recommendations stating “our policy has been developed carefully to try to ensure that every student graduates with the degree classification for which they were on track.”

The Senior Education Team commented on the suggestion to increase dissertations by 5% “as the timing of submission and the weighting of projects/dissertations varies so much across subjects, a single 5% increase is unworkable.”

In response to the 0.5% grade boundaries increase the Senior Education Team stated “a blanket 0.5% is not an appropriate mechanism to protect academic integrity. Informed profiling will enable us to ensure that students achieve an appropriate outcome based on their profile and trajectory.”

Despite the widespread impact of coronavirus, the university argued that “some students would gain an advantage even though they have not been disadvantaged.”

To find out more about the Guild’s campaign, click here.