Interview with Ayman Benmati and Jim Onyemenam: Students’ Union officers behind the ‘no detriment’ negotiations
Students’ Union officers Ayman Benmati and Jim Onyemenam offer their “behind-the-scenes” of the lengthy “no detriment” negotiation process, shedding light on the grim trade-off at the centre of the discussion.
Ayman Benmati and Jim Onyemenam. Source: UCL Students’ Union
The 2020-21 “no detriment” package came in place of a temporary model that UCL had set up at the start of the academic year. This temporary model had assumed that some in-person teaching would resume in Term 2 and included measures like three self-certified Extenuating Circumstances forms and 24-hour exams.
However, the Students’ Union (SU) raised the issue of implementing a “no detriment” policy around Christmas time, in 2020, due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in the country, which made it increasingly unlikely that students would return to campus this academic year. The discussion began at the start of the second term, and was led by Education Officer Ayman Benmati and Postgraduate Students’ Officer Jim Onyemenam.
“‘No detriment’ is needed not because students are going to perform poorly, but because they’re going through a lot more stress.”
“At the time we raised the issue, there were a few open letters and petitions by students for the ‘no detriment’ policy which did really help us,” Ayman said. Yet, he noted that UCL was initially reluctant to establish additional mitigating measures, because the university claimed to have already made adjustments to attenuate the pandemic’s impact this year, such as 24-hour exams and open-book assessments.
Mental health takes centre stage
The SU advocated strongly for a “no detriment” policy because they believed that students’ mental health was highly important. “The mental health concern is the centrepiece to our push for ‘no detriment’. We see that from formative and earlier assessments, student performances are increasing and that students are working well under stress. But we shouldn’t be. ‘No detriment’ is needed not because students are going to perform poorly, but because they’re going through a lot more stress,” Jim highlighted.
UCL’s release of an initial draft of a “no detriment” package two weeks ago came as a shock to Ayman and Jim and they were unsatisfied with it. “They wanted to implement retroactive scaling, which would have made students sit their exams and compare their exam performance to previous cohorts and scale it accordingly … This would have been a ‘detriment’ policy as opposed to a ‘no detriment’ policy,” Ayman stated. Such a policy not only lacks transparency on the process of comparing and scaling exam results, but it would also mean students do not get any assurance before sitting their exams, and would not aid students’ mental health.
The concern over grade inflation
The ideal “no detriment” package that the SU were advocating for would have been one that looked a lot like the 2019-20 policy, which involved module discounting – the removal of a certain number of the lowest credits from the overall grade. But UCL would not allow for this measure, due to concerns over grade inflation.
“...we’ve heard reports that employers are classifying last year’s degrees as ‘Covid degrees’.”
Grade inflation was a huge barrier the SU faced, as it would affect the reputation of UCL students and graduates. “From the statistics, we saw a 20 per cent increase in First Class degrees being issued last year, which was an unsustainable situation. In addition, we’ve heard reports that employers are classifying last year’s degrees as ‘Covid degrees’,” Jim explained.
The union pushed back against UCL’s initial version of the “no detriment”, with Ayman taking the lead on writing the proposal paper. The paper argued strongly against retroactive scaling, most notably how it would not help with students’ mental health, and advocated that mental health should take precedence over grade inflation concerns. The paper proposed policies like module discounting and reducing the weighting of this year’s grades in students’ degrees.
The final ‘no detriment’ package for 20-21
In the end, UCL did not accept those two policies and the conversation shifted to borderline grades. “This is so that UCL can anticipate the amount of grade inflation; last year nobody knew what the impact of the ‘no detriment’ policy would be,” Jim said. Therefore, this year’s policy includes grade classification borderlines being widened by 1 per cent, and an increase in the number of self-certified Extenuating Circumstances – which allow students to postpone assignment deadlines – to five occasions.
Having played an active part in shaping both last year’s and this year’s “no detriment” package, Jim outlined the challenges that arose this year and made the negotiations an “uphill battle”. He said, “Last year it was easy and straightforward. Nobody had heard of ‘no detriment’ and we were building from scratch. But this year there was anticipation and expectations because people knew what it could look like. Most importantly, the rest of the higher education industry knew what happened.” The Russell Group January 7 statement recommending that “no detriment” policies were “not necessary or appropriate this year” also dealt a blow to the SU’s negotiations.
While the SU had hoped for more from the package, they believe it still gives students additional flexibility and agency. “Students can postpone their assessments to late summer assessments. Your exam timetable could come out and you can decide to move some of those to spread it out,” Ayman said.