With summer 2023 graduations now past, we have seen the significant impact of the MAB with many students leaving without degree classifications. In order to ensure the degree factory continued to graduate as many students as possible, however, our management has broken our rigorous academic standards with a variety of “mitigation” strategies. This is particularly depressing when we consider that the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA, which safeguards higher education standards in Scotland) has only this last month released its report recognising the high quality we have achieved in our higher education provision.

UCU Edinburgh have raised their concerns over compromised assessment standards and inequality at the University of Edinburgh with the QAA. Many members at Glasgow have raised similar issues within their subjects and schools, but seen them dismissed and are considering raising concerns with the QAA for investigation. Colleagues can’t allow our high standards to be eroded by poorly thought through pressure from senior management and the resultant disastrously implemented attempts to keep the degree press printing.

As management strategies have varied across the university, we ask members and reps to contact us with information they have about compromised academic standards in their subject, along with any evidence you have (including student complaints and appeals and concerns raised by staff in exam boards or by email). Concerns aren’t limited to but might include:

• Assignments being marked by those lacking sufficient specialist expertise, and/or insufficient or inappropriate feedback given to students;
• Appropriateness of decision making around whether dissertations could be considered to meet the threshold for a pass without having been properly marked, or without double marking, or without effective moderation;
• Failure to consider the importance of external examiners withdrawing and to ensure more and more independent internal examiners were present at exam boards to compensate, or failure to accept concerns of external examiners;
• The lack of clarity about whether dissertations subject to the pass threshold check and coursework generally had been properly checked for plagiarism concerns in the absence of proper marking processes;
• Uncertainty about the adequacy of consideration of ‘good cause’ cases and about whether all late penalties were therefore properly and fairly applied;
• The obvious inequalities in marking and moderation procedures applied to students within the same courses and/or within Single and Joint Honours degree programmes to which our courses contribute; inequalities which call into question the fairness and appropriateness all the degree award and classification decisions made at exam boards;
• New centralised moderation processes which circumvented standard moderation procedures;
• In accredited subjects, students graduating without grades in subjects compulsory for professional accreditation, or with marking carried out by unqualified staff.