Cardiff student starts petition to get a ‘Safety-Net Policy for All’

A Cardiff University student has started a petition calling for the university to ensure a “Saftey-Net Policy for All”. Sophie Anderson, a second year student, created the petition in response to the fact that many students within their first and second years will not benefit from the No-Detriment policy currently in place.  She described the current policy as ‘completely superficial’ due to the ambiguity around the marking of first and second-year assignments.

Since the university has released the details of the ‘no-detriment’ policy, there has been some backlash regarding the exclusion of first and second-year students from a ‘safety net’.

Sophie told The Cardiff Tab that she “decided to start the petition because having spoken to people at other universities it seems the best way to try and get the University’s attention to make sure non-final year students whose marks will contribute to their final degree classification get the same treatment”.

According to the current policy in place, non-final year students in several of the university’s schools will not receive an average grade of their work so far. Instead, the schools will rely on “scaling” to determine grades.

In response to this, Sophie started a Change.org petition entitled “Safety-Net Policy for All” on Thursday 7th May. The petition has gained over three hundred signatures within two days.

The petition argues that a policy should be in place for all students, “regardless of the academic year so that we can continue to complete our coursework and exams with the peace of mind that our degree classification won’t be affected”, due to COVID-19 and the impacts of the industrial action that took place earlier in the academic year.

Students have complained about the safety-net policy being confusing, especially for non-final year students.

Sophie has said that “I just need to get the message and petition out to as many people as possible so that as many students as possible can have the security over the next month of knowing their grades will be okay”.

You can sign the petition here.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Cardiff Uni announce ‘non-detriment’ policy will generate average mark for students
• A student has made a petition for history exams to be rescheduled
• First and second year ENCAP students told no-detriment policy will not apply