Student’s open letter calls for ‘compensation’ after the exam timetable disaster

Warwick students have been clearly upset by the Academic Office's recent handling of the summer exam timetable, which has seen students have a shift in exams by over 20 days. This has happened just under a month before exams are due to start.

In response, an open letter to the university has been published online. The letter is titled "Open letter: To Warwick Academic Office re Summer exam timetable" and it is asking students to sign in support of its message.

The student who initially published the letter online said: "I'm really not an activist. And this is not an act of activism. It is simply an act for students, by students. We came to University to learn not to cram. And we hope to see some active change in the next week."

The letter reads as follows:

The student body has written this letter to actively complain about the lack of organisation about the Summer Exam Timetable for 2019. Over the course of the last few months, the University has demonstrated a careless and nonchalant approach to this process.

The exam season, as you are aware, is one of the most stressful and pivotal periods of any student’s academic career. Job offers, career prospects, research projects and grants depend upon positive results from this period. As you can imagine, as a result, the exam season can accentuate anxiety, stress, depression and other mental health disorders. The University has a duty of care to its students in exchange for the thousands of pounds we pay every year.

This year, this duty has clearly been neglected. It is completely unacceptable to provide a provisional timetable, two weeks after the proposed date (17th March), with 47 out of 729 exams remaining on the same date as the initial provisional timetable stated on the 29th March. With under a month until the exam period officially starts, many students at the University have had shifts in their timetables by over 20 days.

Uncertainty should be minimised instead of heightened during this period of time. The University has had a whole year to orchestrate this exam period. It has been successful before. We simply cannot understand the disruption this year and the Academic Office is yet to provide a concrete answer either. It is not enough to send out a meek apology letter claiming to be ‘looking into the problem.’

You are affecting people's lives. You are affecting people’s well-being. You are affecting people's futures. For those in the student community who are especially vulnerable and prone to mental health issues, you could be having a seriously detrimental impact on their health. There could be serious repercussions as a result of this negligent mismanagement. Warwick created University ID numbers to protect us from discrimination. Do not forget that behind the number, there is a student life who has the right to be protected.

A suggestion, we support is a change in the weighting of these summer exams as compensation for the lack of organisation over the last few months. We hope to see active developments, complete transparency of the process of investigation as well as compensation for all students affected.

Yours Sincerely,

The Active Student Body of Warwick University

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