Context for the second Burgess Consultation
Second Consultation Paper from the Measuring and Recording Student Achievement Steering Group, the “Burgess Group”: The UK Honours Degree: Provision of Information (September 2006).
The second consultation invites further views on the honours degree classification system and provision of information. Subject to the views received in response to this second consultation, the final report of the Burgess Group will be issued early in 2007.
When the Scoping Group and now the Steering Group were established by the sector to investigate the issues around measuring and recording student achievement arising from the Higher Education White Paper The Future of Higher Education, agreement that the current classification system was no longer fit for purpose was the area where there was the quickest agreement and the widest consensus.
In their first report the group outlined a range of criteria that a degree classification system and underpinning assessment arrangements should, as far as possible, meet. Those criteria are repeated in this second consultation document.
One of the proposed way of inconsistencies in classification is to reduce the scale used for the degree classification. It has been an assertion of the group from the very beginning that one of the weaknesses of the current degree classification system was that it was tempting to view it in isolation from additional information and this did not do justice to the considerable achievements arising from three years (or more) of study in higher education. UK HE is committed to implementing the European Diploma Supplement and many institutions also produce transcripts. There was a clear request from the feedback to the previous consultation that guidance should be provided on combining the two.
Having considered various alternatives the Group’s conclusion is that a new classification system of Pass/Fail supported by a combined Diploma Supplement/Transcript would go some way to reducing inconsistencies and better representing the achievements of students. To support this institutions also need to consider their assessment strategies in the context of this change.
Although the White Paper that gave the impetus to the establishment of this group was related to England, the issue of degree classification is a UK wide one and the group welcomes responses from all nations of the United Kingdom.
NUS is a member of the Measuring and Recording Student Achievement Steering Group.
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