UK: Email leak of 'degree inflation'

A leaked email shows how staff at a UK university are being urged to increase the number of top degree grades to keep pace with competing universities, reports BBC News. The internal email from Manchester Metropolitan University tells staff to "bear this in mind" when they do student assessments. The university told the BBC this was in no way related to university policy.

Last week, the higher education exams watchdog warned that the university grading system was "rotten".

The MMU e-mail, sent several months ago to computing and mathematics staff by that department's academic standards manager, calls for an increase in the number of first class and upper second degrees. "As a university we do not award as many Firsts and 2.1s as other comparable institutions so there is an understandable desire to increase the proportion of such awards," it says. "Please bear this in mind when setting your second and final year assessments, especially the latter."

"It provides further evidence of the concern among academics over the pressure to manipulate degree awards to improve the public image of universities and to make them more attractive to applicants," reports BBC News. The number of students achieving a first class degree at UK universities has more than doubled since the mid-1990s. Among last year's university leavers, 61% achieved a first class or upper second class degree.
Full report on the BBC News site