PLEASE HELP US ACHIEVE A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR ALL GCU STUDENTS! 

We are students currently studying at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) and have concerns regarding the university’s ‘no detriment policy’.

The coronavirus has affected all students at GCU on account of classes being moved online. Despite the university’s best efforts, it is clear that students are not receiving the usual standard of tuition and some have missed out on practical workshops for courses. Along with missed classes from strikes in semester A and B, the lack of contact teaching this academic year is of real concern, particularly to those students who have put themselves into a significant amount of debt to complete their degree.

Since university buildings are now closed, students do not have the option to access library books and resources, and some do not have satisfactory electronic devices to keep up to date with teaching in their home. As the ‘University of the Common Good’, we want GCU to consider student mental health at this time. The mounting pressure of deadlines, which have only been extended by 1 week, along with the stress and worry caused by the coronavirus outbreak is hindering students and their learning experience. This is significantly impacting students’ mental health.

In a recent petition which asked GCU to introduce a ‘no detriment’ approach, many students highlighted their distress in the comments, some in caring positions who are struggling to keep up with university work alongside their new roles at home and others describing their inability to complete their studies to the standard they are capable of.

GCU’s ‘no detriment’ approach states that:

“module performance will be analysed in relation to previous cohorts to ensure that any potential impact the epidemic has had on module results is identified and adjustments will be made if necessary”.

However, many universities including Edinburgh, Exeter, Liverpool, Kent, Nottingham, Southampton, Warwick and Cambridge have all introduced specific no detriment or safety-net policies. Their policies explicitly state that students will be graded on their average performance up until the beginning of March 2020 unless they score higher in semester B assessments. This protective policy allows students' average marks to be based on semester A results, unless they perform better in semester B assessments. Some of the aforementioned universities have stated that students must achieve a minimum of 40% in their semester B assessments for the safety-net policy to apply to them.

If a policy such as this one was introduced at GCU instead of the current vague ‘no detriment approach’, it would take some of the pressure off of students at this highly stressful time. Furthermore, as so many other universities have introduced such policies, it now puts GCU students at a disadvantage as our grades up until this point are not being protected in line with other universities. We believe this is detrimental.

We want GCU to implement a mitigation system similar to the ones recently introduced at Edinburgh, Exeter, Liverpool, Kent, Nottingham, Southampton, Warwick and Cambridge to bring a real ‘no detriment approach’ to students.

PLEASE HELP US!