A better class of classification

This week saw a major announcement from the University: that from 2013 they would be charging £9,000 a year fees. This won’t have come as a surprise to anyone. There has, however, been another, more surprising and certainly more welcome announcement: that we are one of seven highly ranked British Universities in informal talks over the adoption of the Grade Point Average (GPA) degree rating scheme. Slight variants of the GPA system are used worldwide, but most widely in America. It’s a way of classifying degrees, so we would be scrapping the current system of 1st, 2:1, 2:2, 3rd and moving to a continuous scale, with your degree assigned a numerical value rather than a class.

It is not new to say that the current ‘class’ system of degree needs review. The Dearing Report in 1997 noted it “may become increasingly redundant.” Then in 2002 a British Educational Research Association study suggested comparing degrees between institutions using the classification system wasn’t possible, and since then other ideas have floated around considering alternatives.

This latest announcement, however, represents the first instance of several institutions from within the sector taking their own action in developing the use of an alternative. Perhaps all the discussion of external groups and educational reports was necessary, but it’s never going to prompt a transfer to a more expressive system without the support of the universities issuing the qualifications. That is why I’m pleased to see that York is one of the institutions taking clear steps to adopting new criteria for expressing the standard of a degree.
The current system has three main flaws. First, it draws huge distinctions between those who achieve a 2.1 and those who do not. If you plan on working for a large law firm, a Big Four Auditor, many branches of the Civil Service and more, you must have achieved a 2.1 to even get your foot in the door. However, the distinction between a 2.1 and a 2.2 can often be very minor, and this system needlessly segregates equally-able students into the employable and the less so. Similarly, those who get a 60 and a 69 are equated when that represents quite a different level of achievement during the degree. While there is always going to be a cut off, the GPA system puts students on a more varied scale, telling employers more about the quality of the student.

Secondly, the classes are not the same as grades; they are not absolute cut-offs. In my own department, if you receive more than 100 credits of 1st class modules, then you can average a 65 and still receive a 1st overall. However, if you average 69 without 100 credits of 1st class modules then you are stuck with a 2.1. This seems counterintuitive, and demonstrates the injustice of the system. Is the 1st on your transcript to tell others that you are capable of 1st-class work, even if your average is lower?

Thirdly, no one outside the UK knows what it means. That might have advantages when it comes to tricking your way into American jobs, but I would rather when it comes to working or studying abroad I had a qualification they could recognise.

There is another advantage of this system over other alternatives mooted. It is purely academic. It doesn’t feature extracurricular activities in the measure. The debate as to whether to recognise other activities in a degree transcript is long and varied, but I believe that the award received from a university should be purely based on the academic work completed there. It’s impossible to sum up the wealth of activities taken by a student in a number or a paragraph written by your supervisor, and as such we should not try. It risks disadvantaging those whose activities are external to the university, or those who need to work to pay their way and so cannot take part in as many other things.

As a result of all of this I am happy that York is one of the seven universities leading the way in negotiating this preferable alternative for recognising degrees. Now we just need to persuade some other universities to get on board.