Students' Union outlines UCL's ‘disappointing’ no detriment package

Ahead of UCL’s official announcement next Tuesday, February 9, the Students’ Union has outlined the final “no detriment” package for 2021, admitting its disappointment that it won’t go far enough for students.

Source: UCL Imagestore

In the live “Group Chat” broadcast hosted by the Students’ Union today, Education Officer Ayman Benmati set out the key measures of the “no detriment” package finalised in the UCL Education Committee meeting this morning. 

The two key measures mentioned were:

• “Borderline adjustment” policy (explained below)

• A total of five opportunities for 14-day self-certified deadline extensions through the Extenuating Circumstances procedure. This delivers two more extensions than previously announced and they are not limited to Term 3 only.

UCL have firmly rejected any module-discounting (eliminating a student’s lowest module marks from their overall classification), which was at the core of last year’s “no detriment” policy. 

What is borderline adjustment?

Adjusting the borderlines means that UCL will effectively reduce assessment grade boundaries with a flexibility of one to two per cent. Therefore, students will only need to achieve 68.5 for a First, 58.5 for a 2:1, and so forth. On the live broadcast, Benmati explained “What it boils down to is if you do find that you’ve done badly in one or two, maybe even three modules, which are like outliers, this won’t affect your overall classification.” The specific details of this measure are yet to be communicated by UCL.

The borderline adjustment policy comes as a compromise between UCL and the Students’ Union. UCL had initially proposed a package built around “retroactive scaling”, which would only make adjustments to grades, if deemed necessary, after the assessment period. Retroactive scaling was strongly opposed by the Students’ Union as a seriously “flawed” approach, risking disadvantaging some students and withholding the assurance that all students desperately need. 

Instead, the Union’s counter-proposal paper produced by Benmati and Postgraduate Students’ Officer Jim Onyemenam fought for more substantial measures, such as module-discounting and re-weighting grades between years, to achieve a package “as similar to last year’s ‘no detriment’ policy as possible.”  While UCL has withdrawn its retroactive approach, it was firmly against module-discounting. 

Benmati said in the broadcast that “unfortunately, UCL made it crystal clear that academic standards trump student priorities.” He added, “They unequivocally decided that they would not stand for module-discounting this year, and this is disappointing for students … It’s something we have been fighting for so hard for these last few weeks, but it boils down to grade inflation. UCL simply would not budge on that.”

When asked for comment, the education officer has reiterated this evening that “Disappointingly, UCL has made the decision not to go ahead with module discounting as we proposed. Unfortunately, concerns about grade inflation took precedence over student priorities.”

The final “no detriment” package, as briefly outlined today, is very different from last year’s policy and falls short of the serious action students have been calling for to mitigate the dreadful impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Pi News spoke to Zoe West-Taylor, a third-year Languages student, who expressed concern that “After the delays made to the ‘no detriment’ announcement, UCL’s introduction of a mere grade boundary reduction will be very disappointing to many students who were hoping for a policy providing real support and reducing stress and anxiety that the last few months of lockdown have produced.”

Dom Borghino, third-year Law, added that “Following today’s announcement, amid the anger and disappointment and worry UCL students will be feeling, there is a frustration that UCL have taken this long to outwardly admit what we knew all along: that in reality they never really cared about helping us in a meaningful way, because they believe no amount of student outrage could ever sully their precious reputation. It’s a shame they don’t realise that, in the eyes of many students, their reputation is already in tatters”

There is concern that UCL’s official announcement of the full package next Tuesday will likely be received with great student upset. On social media, students are already seeking to organise in protest to UCL’s decisions. 

UCL has not issued a statement concerning today’s Students’ Union “Group Chat” broadcast.