Ramsay campaigns for clearer Honours pass mark

The Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) is to launch a campaign calling for clearer information on pass marks required for entry into the honours portions of degrees.

Details specifying the required pass marks are currently documented in course handbooks, which students have access to from the start of the academic year.

Nevertheless, the prerequisite grades can vary depending on the subject and individual degree programmes, potentially causing confusion and the communication of mixed messages amongst undergraduate students.

EUSA President Adam Ramsay said: "It's really important that students know what mark they need to pass. It's not good enough for courses to bury what you need somewhere in a course guide you are given at the beginning of the year.

"The university is trying to placate some schools by allowing different systems to exist in different places for no good reason. I accept that some things, like medicine, are different, but apart from that the university needs to deliver a fair, consistent, easily understandable system."

Current second year students have a system whereby a pass grade of 40 per cent does not guarantee entry onto their two year-long Honours course. An average grade above 50 per cent throughout the year should enable any student to progress from an ordinary degree to Honours, yet the ambiguity prevails.

Similarly, while students studying modern languages are denied the option of resits over the summer, mathematics students understand that it is a possibility should everything go wrong on exam day in May.

EUSA's campaign is calling for schools within the university to unanimously agree upon a pass mark, and stick to it without exception.

Recommending that progressing onto Honours courses depend upon a fixed 40 per cent grade average, Mr Ramsay said: "They [the academic policy committee] are worried that some schools would complain too much if this happened. I think they should be worrying about students complaining instead.

"People get information on this sort of thing from their flatmates and friends, who may study different subjects altogether, not only their course books.

"The university can complain that students should be better than that and do their own research, but they should recognise they are working with students, and develop clearer systems understanding that."

Second year geography student Barney Bedford told The Journal: "When anybody is confused or finds it difficult to understand, a quick email to your director of studies is the only way to make it perfectly clear. I'm guessing its slightly different for other courses like medicine and law but seeing as they're such big courses you'd assume that it's more clearly set out for them."