The Daily Telegraph

Universiti­es told not to use Covid as an excuse for grade inflation

- By India Mctaggart

THE number of first-class degrees awarded has more than doubled in 10 years and a watchdog has warned that Covid cannot be used as an excuse for “baked in” university grade inflation.

Data released by the Office for Students (OFS) yesterday indicate that more than half of the firsts awarded in 2021 cannot be explained when compared with exam results a decade ago.

The proportion of graduates who attained top degrees rose from 15.7 per cent in 2010/11 to 37.9 per cent in 2020/21, a 142 per cent increase, according to the OFS.

Some 84.4 per cent of students achieved a first or upper second, compared with 67 per cent 10 years ago.

The OFS said nearly six in 10 first-class degrees could not be explained when students’ background, age and A-level results were taken into account and then compared to that of the 2010/11 cohort. The watchdog warned that the trend has been a “credibilit­y issue for the sector for some time”, and that “the pandemic cannot be used as an excuse to allow a decade of unexplaine­d grade inflation to be baked into the system”.

The OFS said it was aware that universiti­es had used “no detriment” policies to adapt their assessment­s to the pandemic, with marking adapted so that students were not disadvanta­ged because of the pandemic.

This approach typically ensured that students would be awarded a final grade no lower than the university’s most recent assessment of their attainment.

However, the OFS found that the number of first-class degrees had increased for all students since 2010/11, with a pre-pandemic report also finding that nearly half of the firsts awarded in 2018/19 were unexplaine­d.

Susan Lapworth, interim chief executive at the OFS, said the report “starkly demonstrat­es the scale of increases in degree classifica­tions in our universiti­es and colleges”.

“Unmerited grade inflation is bad for students, graduates and employers, and damages the reputation of English higher education,” she said.

The OFS found that in 2020-21, 60.8 per cent of students with three As and above at A-level received firsts at university, compared to 33.5 per cent in 2010-11.

The report also found that the average rate of firsts for those entering with three Ds at A-level and below had increased from 5.3 to 28.5 per cent.

Ms Lapworth said it was “essential” that students, employers and graduates had “confidence that degrees represent an accurate assessment of achievemen­t” and the OFS would publish details of its investigat­ion into grade inflation at universiti­es shortly.

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