Susan Bassnett: Why university exams need a radical overhaul

Anxiety about what goes on in universities has surfaced again, this time over the quality of degrees being handed out. This kind of debate usually emerges in August, when A-level and GCSE results are published, and ministers say that the increase in top grades is due to better teaching and higher levels of achievement, and pundits wonder why, therefore, top universities are setting their own entrance exams and running remedial classes. Disquieting news has also come from employers, who suggest that they may trust a lower degree from a top university more than a high degree from a university less high in the league tables.

Those of us who work in universities know that the picture is actually pretty complex. British universities maintain degree standards in two ways: through a system of external examiners, who monitor the assessment process and oversee fairness, and through a system of internal reviews that are assessed periodically by a university-wide quality audit run by the Quality Assurance Agency.

The trouble is that both these systems are creaking under the weight of increased student numbers. The QAA Audit superseded the older system of subject review, which was perceived by academics as a kind of inspectorate, and was, in all truth, very intrusive and often not fair. Under this old system, a team of academics visited subject units and assessed the quality of teaching, based, in part, on peer observation in the seminar or lecture room. Apart from the intrusiveness, the diversity of practice in the UK as a whole meant that teams often had very different expectations, and the outcomes reflected this – to everybody's chagrin.

The audit system is basically a paper trail. It is extremely time-consuming and doesn't get under the surface of what really happens in a university. Nor can it influence the way in which an institution might choose to go. I am a trained auditor, for my sins, and I well recall being on an audit team that singled out for praise an aspect of one leading university as best practice, only to see that system dismantled six months later in the teeth of student protests when a new vice-chancellor arrived. The audit looks at the systems an institution has in place through the paperwork made available, and that is as far as it goes.

The external-examiner system likewise is no longer fit for purpose, because it is so inconsistent. There are some universities where the externals are treated with respect, can read whatever they like and are consulted on all aspects of the assessment process, from the setting of papers to their presence at the final examination board. But there are a lot of universities that pay only lip service to external examiners, places where examiners do not see candidates' work, are not invited to the final examination board, and where their task is, like that of QAA auditors, to check that all the boxes have been ticked in the paperwork.

I started out as a serious sceptic when the QAA came into being. I loathed the old subject-review system and welcomed the audit process as a lighter touch. But as a parent, when I have toured universities looking at the promises made to students, and as an external examiner who has been dismayed by the way I have been kept away from students' work, I have changed my mind. I feel the time has come for a radical rethink of how university quality and standards can be guaranteed.

It is interesting to see how many universities still proclaim the value of scores that they received from the old subject review, in some cases more than 10 years old. This suggests that although subject review was hated, it was also seen to be useful, as it was effectively the only way that prospective students and their families could see what was happening in individual institutions.

One problem is the inequality of marking systems and examination conventions between and within universities. Assessment is one of those areas, like car-parking and hot-desking, that arouses deep passions among academics. For me, having a university-wide system of marking that ensures every department is following the same rules is a no-brainer, but I have sat in on so many vicious debates about the need for subject X to continue marking in a different way from subject Y, and to keep their idiosyncratic conventions, that I realise my views are not widely shared.

If it is possible to get a first-class degree more easily in some universities, it is also possible for that to happen in different parts of the same university. We need to rethink assessment practices, and to do so before government imposes some intrusive inspectorate system in an attempt to reassure the public.

The writer is a pro-vice-chancellor at Warwick University

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