{"id":23648,"date":"2018-10-29T12:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=23648"},"modified":"2018-10-29T12:30:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:30:57","slug":"too-many-first-class-degrees-government-will-investigate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/too-many-first-class-degrees-government-will-investigate\/","title":{"rendered":"Too many first-class degrees? Government will investigate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>A panel of experts will moderate the marks universities award to students in response to concerns of \u2018grade inflation.\u2019<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_23650\" style=\"width: 750px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23650\" class=\"wp-image-23650 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/10\/university-student-1872810_1280-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"740\" height=\"493\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-23650\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image courtesy \u7b80\u4f53\u4e2d\u6587 of <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/university-student-graduation-photo-1872810\/\">Pixabay<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Higher Education Statistics Agency <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hesa.ac.uk\/news\/11-01-2018\/sfr247-higher-education-student-statistics\/qualifications\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">previously reported<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that 26% of students are graduating with a first-class degree, an 18% increase from just five years ago. These statistics sparked concern that degrees were being \u2018marked up\u2019 and decreasing the credibility of universities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Universities Minister Sam Gyimah said: \u201cWhen you look at what makes our universities so prestigious, it comes down to the value of our degrees. The value of those degrees is threatened by grade inflation and that is a problem for students, employers and the universities themselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The government will be using the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework rating system, introduced in 2017, to review evidence of universities awarding firsts excessively. Universities could be penalised if found to have lower standards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">University leaders defend the rise of higher degrees as the result of improved teaching approaches and technology.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk\/documents\/SN00917\/SN00917.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">tuition fees steadily increasing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, students will want to know they\u2019re being fairly graded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you feel like you\u2019re getting your money\u2019s worth? University students: get in touch @<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/VoiceOfLondonUK\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">VoiceOfLondonUK<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Words: Claire Chung | Subbing: Taylor Paatalo<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A panel of experts will moderate the marks universities award to students in response to concerns of \u2018grade inflation.\u2019 The Higher Education Statistics Agency previously reported that 26% of students are graduating with a first-class&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":23650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,134],"tags":[2035,2723,3681,5958,6597],"class_list":["post-23648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-uknews","tag-education","tag-grade-inflation","tag-lifestyle","tag-students","tag-university"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}