Dear Aston University,

We are petitioning upon the complaints from students about the unfairness of in person exams for some courses.

Many students are currently attending their second year of university and are faced with an unfair situation. University in their first year was shaped strongly by Covid. Lessons were put online which followed by exams. Most students in their second year of university haven't attended a proper in person exam in 3-4 years and some international students never attended proper examination in English. The exams in question are end of the year exams. The previous exams in the year (January exams) were originally pushed to be in person but changed to online. Therefore, students started second year examinations online which didn't allow them to have an opportunity to gain experience in exams in less stressful period. Now students are expected to take end of year exams without any previous experience in many years. The stress of exams normally is very high, but now Covid and the particular situation create an impossible stressful mind set for the students. Many students don’t feel respected which has been brought to our attention by serval complaints and problems that have been voiced and we don’t feel the university is doing enough to ensure that students are able to perform to their fullest capabilities in a safe environment and are given an equal opportunity to other students to achieve a good degree, hence why this petition. We believe there is a lack of preparedness for on-campus exams and student have become used to the online mode of exams and cannot suddenly be expected to switch back to in person exams especially for end of the year exams.

Furthermore, Covid is still very prominent in the UK but there’s just less media coverage. There are about 40,000 cases a day. Many students don't feel comfortable to attend in person exams since they could risk their health and of loved ones. Students from all different courses find it unfair their examination circumstances compared to other university courses at Aston University. We expect to be treated equally regarding exams. Currently, the courses that have online exams are law, biomedical science, business and management.

I hope you can take time to reflect the opinions of the students and the problems we are facing and can come up with an adequate solution that ensures student equality as well as allowing us all to achieve our dream degrees.

We all respect Aston University and by no means are we trying to diminish the university’s reputation but instead we believe that our university should be aware of our problems we are facing and hopefully you can do the right thing.

Many universities have recognized the problem and have organized online examination for the entire 2021/2022 school year (University of Essex and University of Kent) and we believe you should follow. It’s unfair to the students, having to be thrown into the deep without proper preparation.

Kind Regards and thanks for reading.