Cambridge University set to abolish 300-year-old tradition of displaying results outside Senate House

Oxford scrapped the controversial move in 2009

The boards, pictured, outside Senate House (image via Our Grades, Our Choice/Facebook)

Cambridge University is set to abolish its 300-year-old tradition of displaying students’ grades on a noticeboard following discontent from student campaigners that the move was “damaging” to their welfare.

According to student newspaper Varsity - which had broken the original story of the upcoming decision last month - the decision means that, from 1 October, public display of student’s grades in the university and its colleges will no longer happen.

Until this week, Cambridge had been the only university to keep the tradition going by posting copies of results outside the institution’s Senate House. Oxford University already scrapped a similar move back in 2009.

The university’s students’ union (CUSU) had voted to abolish the system in November last year following an Our Grades, Our Choice campaign, and said: “The current system of class lists denies students privacy with their results and is damaging for the welfare of many students.”

A student petition which led to the abolition had gathered around 1,200 signatures as campaigners said: “[We want] to recognise the fact that students at Cambridge currently have no autonomy over how, when, and where their class mark result is shown both in Cambridge and online.

“It seems to be rooted in Cambridge tradition to present every student’s result outside Senate House in the summer, or at their faculty, or via a PDF, and a variety of other ways which means their personal information is readily available to anybody who wishes to see it.”

The names of prize-winning students, however, will still be made public.