UCL Students’ Union announces amended and enhanced Extenuating Circumstances

UCL Students’ Union have announced an update to the university’s “amended and enhanced Extenuating Circumstances (EC’s) policy”.

This was announced on the Students’ Union Instagram story following an EACP meeting earlier today.

The university’s criteria for extenuating circumstances this year was also discussed (amongst other topics) during a new show launched on Friday, called ‘The Group Chat’. The was hosted live on the Students’ Union’s Facebook and YouTube by Students’ Union officers Jim (postgraduate students’ officer), Ayman (education officer) and Carol (democracy, operations and community officer).

In the update from today’s EACP meeting, Ayman states the following:

“Hey everyone, it’s Ayman, your education officer here. Hope you had a really great weekend. I’m just here with your usual EACP (Examination and Assessment Contingency Panel) update. In case you haven’t already seen it, we did a podcast on Friday where we spoke a little bit about the no detriment policy as well as other issues, so do check that out. At today’s meeting we basically worked on finalising this year’s amended and enhanced extenuating circumstances policy.

“We discussed things like dissertation extensions, postponing credits to the late summer assessment, amongst other things. We haven’t been able to finalise details just yet, but I can tell you this: look out for the next official announcement from UCL within the next couple of days. It’s going to tell you everything that you need to know about this new amended and enhanced EC policy.

“I just want to clarify this is not your safety net or no detriment policy – this is something separate. It’s an extra sweet of mitigations to ensure that the EC’s offered by UCL are adequate, considering recent developments with the pandemic – so do look out for that announcement in the next couple of days.

“We’re working on the actual safety net and we’ll be able to give you some more news in the next couple of weeks – fingers crossed by the end of next week. Start of February, you’ll have some news so stay safe and enjoy your week.”

In the live show hosted on Friday, they also suggested that self-certified EC’s could potentially become permanent in the future. So you may not have to go to your GP to ask for a note anymore if you are feeling unwell.

For up-to-date news and information about UCL and their other policies, look out for news articles from The Tab and announcements from UCL. Alternatively, students can tune into the Students’ Union’s live show ‘The Group Chat’ hosted every Friday afternoon, for more updates.