Exemptions abolished

Students taking Schols this year will be the last to enjoy exemptions from their Annual examinations, under changes that will be introduced from next year.

At present, students who score a II.1(60%) are exempt from their annual exams, effectively a six month summer holiday from April to October. Lecturers from across College have complained that the current system leads to students sitting the exam just to get exemptions, and these students rarely attend lectures in Trinity Term, as they are supposed to. This has led to problems as Trinity term coursework is neglected.

The change follows a review of Schols that has been ongoing since 2005. Under the new academic year structure there will no longer be a break in March between Hilary and Trinity Term, where the exams are usually held. Instead they will be held over the Christmas break.

The exam itself is also to be ‘significantly shortened’ to around 3-4 papers over 8-9 hours of examination. This is a big departure from the present – BESS students currently sit 7 papers over 21 hours. The review found wide variations across College in the exams themselves and the proportions of students being successful in getting Schol – 44% of students in the Faculty of Health Science who sat the exams got Schol in 2004-2006, compared to only 16% of students in Engineering or Science. Last year there were 5 Scholars in the School of Law, with about 120 SF students, while there were 7 Scholars in Theoretical Physics, with 35 students.

Each course will now have to prepare statements justifying how the examinations they set are consistent with the institution of Scholarship, and a College committee will oversee this.

There was concern that talented students do not enter Schol but acheive First Class honours and Gold Medals in their Final exams. It was proposed to integrate Schols with the Annual exams in the SF year. This met with much resistance, however, as many see voluntarily opting to sit the demanding exam a central element of the institution.