Degree awards 'close to farce'
Friday, 18 July 2008
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The university degree classification system is "descending into farce", the chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Universities has said.
Phil Willis was speaking as MPs questioned Peter Williams, the chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), the higher education watchdog, on degree standards. "An individual institution can award as many firsts as it wants, provided it satisfies its own criteria on what is a first," Mr Willis said.
It followed comments from Professor Geoffrey Alderman, the former head of quality at the University of London, which were reported in The Independent, that lecturers had been told to "mark softly" to ensure enough first-class degree passes were awarded to win a high ranking in league tables. He also alleged universities were turning a "blind eye" to plagiarism by international students because they were dependent on income from their fees.
Mr Willis, who is also the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate, made his comment after hearing that individual universities drew up their own criteria for what constituted a first-class degree.
Mr Willis said that this meant there was nothing to stop an individual vice-chancellor taking steps to boost the number of first-class degrees awarded, adding: "We seem to have had a miraculous improvement in standards of achievement in some of our universities."
The number of first-class degrees has doubled since the mid-1990s.
Mr Williams told the committee that "the degree classification system has passed its usefulness," adding that there was "no evidence of consistency between subjects in institutions and between institutions".
