Universities told to curb ‘inflation’ of degree grades
Minister says surge in top marks being handed out devalues British degrees and undermines students
UNIVERSITIES failing to tackle grade inflation could see their league table rankings plunge under Government plans in response to fears that a boom in top grades is “devaluing the currency” of a British degree.
Sam Gyimah, the universities minister, will today announce that the latest pilot of the Government’s university ranking system will include criteria for assessing whether academics are doing enough to curb grade inflation.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph last night, Mr Gyimah warned that if assessors found universities to be deliberately inflating grades, their rating would inevitably suffer and their “reputation will also take a hit”.
His comments come amid growing concern that a surge in firsts, up by 400 per cent at some universities from the 1990s, is undermining the value of a British degree and forcing employers to look at alternative selection criteria.
The scale of the problem is so severe that a report by the Reform think tank warned that universities are now in a “race to the bottom”, adding that the inflation of top degrees has been “unrelenting” over the past two decades.
In a new round of pilots of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), which awards universities gold, silver and bronze ratings for teaching quality, the assessors will examine whether institutions are taking a “responsible approach” to grade inflation.
Universities’ ratings are expected to suffer if they are found to have awarded an “excessive number of firsts and 2:1s”.
Mr Gyimah told this newspaper he will also host a summit of university bodies and watchdogs later this year, where he will warn that grade inflation cannot be tackled unless they begin “playing their part” in a more “rigorous way”.
Unveiling the proposals last night, Mr Gyimah said: “From travelling around our universities, what is very clear is that students are investing in their education and working extremely hard.
“But if systematic grade inflation continues, we are devaluing the currency of degrees and putting their hard work at risk.
“Our universities are autonomous, but with autonomy comes responsibility – and they have got to use their autonomy in a way that ensures and maintains the quality of their degrees for students.”
Mr Gyimah is also concerned that the sheer number of watchdogs responsible for monitoring teaching and degree quality means that some universities with bad practices may be “falling through the cracks”.
At the summit, he is expected to call on university governing bodies to work together to ensure that there is more consistency across the sector in marking and the awarding of top grades.
That follows a report published by Universities UK earlier this year, which found that a number of institutions were ignoring students’ lowest module scores, via a “discounting” mechanism, in order to boost grades.
Separate research has found that half of all universities have changed their degree algorithms in the past five years, with officials admitting that the changes were made so that their students were not disadvantaged in comparison with rival institutions.