Posted on Tue 25 Aug 2020 at 15:57 by
Annie Willingham A lot has happened over the last week, which has highlighted the extent to which the education sector needs reform.
The release of A-Level results on Thursday 13th July caused significant distress to thousands of applicants. It became apparent that the methods put in place to provide fairness and mitigation to students finishing their secondary-level studies throughout Covid-19 had, in reality, deepened existing inequalities whereby students from privileged backgrounds held an advantage compared to less privileged pupils. Any system that awards a ‘U’ to a student who did not have the chance to turn up for an exam (as they were following governments guidelines to stay at home!) is grossly flawed. Consequently, the algorithm resulted in students, primarily from under-represented backgrounds, at risk of losing out on the future they deserve.
On Monday 17th July, the Government announced a U-Turn - a step in the right direction, although it still left students disadvantaged due to a structurally classist, (and systematically racist) moderation system and algorithm.
On the topic of University admissions, this year, understandably, safety is many universities’ chief priority. No institution wants to be responsible for a local lockdown or a second spike. Therefore, to guarantee a high-quality student experience, there needs to be a limit to how many students are accepted to courses in the 2020/2021 cohort. Whilst it would be the universities financial dream to have more students attending, the most sensible decision to mitigate the damage of the government’s grading system and U-turn is to defer additional intake by guaranteeing places for 2021 entry. From a students’ perspective, an unprecedented increase in intake this year would result in all sorts of undesirable outcomes: imagine the pressure on the buses, where there’s already a struggle for seats. This is not to mention the added pressure to finding student housing in a city that is already short on HMOs and how an increasingly large cohort would have a fundamental impact on your student experience, in a time where budget and resources are increasingly tight.
The government’s decisions and support (or lack thereof) towards education is highly concerning. Students on free-school meals, students with disabilities, black students and, those from low-participation postcodes are systemically facing more barriers in order to access the education they deserve. The government has a system that does not work, and which allows students that need support the most fall through the cracks. This is not right. There needs to be investment in education to mitigate and ultimately end these inequalities, and a system is needed to ensure that the correct level of support is given to allow students to excel and go on to be future leaders.
On Thursday 20th July, SU Bath Officers joined other Students’ Union Officers from the South West to attend a socially distanced protest called #JusticeForEducation that was led by NUS (National Union of Students) demanding:
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Fair and free resits and appeals
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An overhaul of the exam system
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Appropriate funding for our Universities
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Action on student and staff safety.
This is a national campaign calling for investment into education over the next few months addressing the educational inequalities present. The A-Level shambles only brought to the fore pre-existing inequalities and showed the urgent need for support to be established for students who have missed out on their education due to a pandemic for several months. Time and time again we have seen how the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students who have been hit the hardest by the pandemic, with cases of student hardship being raised nationally and investigations highlighting how remote learning was not accessible to disadvantaged demographics of our student populations. All students deserve the correct support and equipment to allow them to excel and achieve what they want from education. We need to speak up for those experiencing this injustice and who may otherwise not be able to access university, through no fault of their own.
What are we going to do at Bath?
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Safety is number one priority right now, myself and Francesco are in contact with Mike Nicholson (Head of Undergraduate Admissions) who has informed us of the decision being taken to not increase student intake for courses that were already at capacity for the next academic year but if a student had now secured the grades that met the offer conditions they would be offered a deferred place for 2021. This aligns with guidance shared from the Universities’ Minister of where an institution had reached capacity for 2020 on safety grounds, deferring an offer to 2021 was an acceptable outcome. As we have previously announced, whilst we would love to have everyone on our campus, we stand by the decisions made by the University ensuring that campus remains a safe place to be.
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Ensure the University is meeting the requirements set by them in their Access and Participation Plan (can be found here www.bath.ac.uk/publications/university-of-bath-access-and-participation-plans/). Whilst this is not a hard deadline, the University need to show progress towards meeting these goals which can be found above.
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Students who do join from POLAR4 Quintile 1 or Quintile 2 (socio-economically disadvantaged postcodes) need to be adequately supported throughout their time at University, this means they must be aware of scholarships and hardship funds they have access to, allowing them to excel whilst at University.
Education is key for social mobility and in my opinion is a right, not a privilege. We must be doing everything we can to ensure all students have access to high quality education.
Please get in touch if you want to talk further about the state of the education system.
Email address: sueducation@bath.ac.uk