Horrified second years told they failed module in results mix-up

Bumbling uni staff panicked second years when they accidentally told them they’d failed a crucial end-of-year module and would need to re-sit exams in the summer.

The Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway – one of the top politics departments in the country – made the error when issuing second years their exam results.

The email listed students who had passed and failed by their candidate numbers, but incorrectly labelled several as having failed their end-of-year exam.

The email also failed to include marks for two modules all together.

Chaos reigned in the PIR department on results day

Unbelievably, it took them two follow-up emails to correct all their mistakes, with distraught second years left waiting an hour and a half for the error to be completely resolved.

The errors caused those affected a great deal of distress as resits are capped at 40 per cent which would obviously have a detrimental effect on their overall grade.

The first correction was sent to second years after two modules were missed off the original email

90 minutes after their initial email, the department finally corrected the last of their mistakes

One PIR second year told the Tab: “I was a little concerned with how poorly they were handling such sensitive information.”

Another, who wasn’t affected by the mix-up said: “I think it’s terrible mismanagement by the university. I feel so sorry for the students who thought they had failed.”

When contacted by The Tab, the department issued the following statement: “Unfortunately an error was made while issuing the exam results for second year Politics and International Relations students which led to some students receiving an incorrect result.

“We’re very sorry for the anxiety this will have caused to students who received incorrect information.

“We became aware of the problem shortly after the results had been released and were able to contact all affected students within an hour.

“We recognise how important it is for our students to receive accurate information and we’re committed to ensuring all exam results are issued correctly.”