Universities ‘using Covid as excuse’ to keep exams online

‘Shocking’ for elite colleges to abandon most physical tests, say campaigners

LEADING universities are keeping most exams online this summer citing the “continuing dangers posed by coronavirus”, despite wider society returning to normal.

Thousands of undergraduates sitting their end of year exams this month are able to do so from home with the aid of revision materials.

Months after Britain’s last Covid curbs were dropped, an analysis by The Sunday Telegraph found online exams were being used at universities, including Cambridge, St Andrews, Durham and Exeter.

Government Covid guidance for campuses was withdrawn in April.

It has prompted fears that the Russell Group campuses are “dumbing down” by permanently moving away from the pressure of “closed book” traditional exam halls, which were the norm before the pandemic and required students to rely on memory.

At Cambridge, more than 1,000 of the 3,000 summer examinations on the final term timetable are listed as “online assessment test”, taking place over the next two months.

At Durham, all students have been told that “the majority of examinations will be offered online, with a smaller number held in-person” in May and June.

They have been advised that they will now “normally” have 24 hours to complete their exam, though they are advised only to spend several hours on it for their wellbeing and given “self-care” including meditation, yoga and Zumba. In Durham’s English department, guidance claims the choice to stick with online exams is “in response to the continuing dangers posed by the global pandemic of Covid-19”, despite schools across the country having returned to in-person exams.

At St Andrews, every exam on the 28-page summer 2022 timetable is online, bar a small number where locations are not specified.

Its guidance says these “will be ‘ open book’, meaning you are free to consult your lecture notes, books and other resources”, while others will be “take-home style exams” of up to eight hours including “rest breaks [and] meals”.

Meanwhile, Exeter’s timetable says “the majority of May 2022 exams will take place online”, with only a small minority in-person where required.

Arabella Skinner, of the parents campaign group UsForThem, said: “Once again universities are using Covid as an excuse and not putting the educational needs of their students first.

“To argue that Covid makes it impossible for universities to offer in-person exams, when [school] pupils are physically sitting their public exams, is outrageous.”

A Durham University spokesman said its assessment was “rigorous and thorough”. A Cambridge University spokesman said “all decisions are based on delivering the most effective examinations”.

St Andrews and Exeter were asked to comment.

Theory in practice Giant dominos were toppled across Norwich to mark the opening of the 250th anniversary edition of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. The blocks were spread across 1.37 miles of the city. The festival, which runs until Sunday May 29, is considered to be one of the oldest city festivals in England.

It has prompted fears that the Russell Group campuses are ‘dumbing down’