Degree classifications to be scrapped. Snippet: The centuries-old system of university degree classifications is to be scrapped under plans being drawn up by ministers, it was reported today. The system of first, second and third class honours degrees will be replaced by a US-style points system, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement. ... I fell off my chair laughing when I saw this. Those hapless sods...
Another article from the Guardian: Simply the best. Snippet: The shorthand version of British higher education is that we are invariably where America was 10 years ago. The answer "whither higher-ed UK?" is to be found not in (forever deferred) white papers, the gloomy prognostications of Roger Scruton, the upbeat ("globalised excellence") prophecies of Sir Richard Sykes, nor in chicken entrails, but across the ocean, did we but look there. ... (Sykes is head of Imperial College, and former CEO of Glaxo Wellcome. Scruton is a gadfly.)
Seems like a stupid lurch toward unnecessary standardization, or a complete failure of nerve for no very good reason.
Maybe I am cynical but I cannot see this hapening quickly or unanimously without much longer discussion. Whatever governments might say about how universities assess students, they are unlike schools who are directly managed by Education departments. Many years ago, 'semesters' were introduced in some universities but today as many places continue with the old system of 'terms' (judging by the vacations continuing on campuses). Moreover, a classification by a 'lesser' university that has the same name ('First, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third') is not accepted in practice as the same from a 'first division, or second division' university. In the UK all this may be informal but it is the way it happens. And anyway, Oxford and Cambridge will go whatever way they want to whatever educational theorists order. I think the majoirty of 'old universities' will tend to follow Oxbridge, though some will break ranks (knighthoods, etc.,) and have dual systems of grade points and the old classifications. Give it 50 years.
