Universities | The Guardian

The pandemic ruined my A-levels – now the marking boycott casts a shadow over my degree | Kimi Chaddah

For those students sitting final university exams like me, this summer’s graduations are clouded by chaos and uncertainty

This year’s graduations, universities claim, will be indistinguishable from those of previous years. Except there’s one glaring problem: as a student there isn’t much to celebrate. Currently, a marking and assessment boycott is affecting 145 British universities and, like many of the thousands of students graduating this summer, I am set to leave without a formal classification.

For the class of 2023, the same year-group whose GCSEs were reformed in 2018 and A-levels cancelled in 2020, this marks the end of a deeply dispiriting educational journey.

Kimi Chaddah is a student at Durham University and a writer on education and politics

This article was amended on 13 June 2023. An earlier headline said that the writer would be left “without a degree”; this is not the case for students at Durham University. An earlier subheading implied that negotiations had halted at Durham University, while they are ongoing. Engagement in negotiations varies (an earlier version said there was “no negotiation from university management”) and all marks do not have to be received before a final degree can be awarded. A comment from Durham University denying that inexperienced people are marking exam papers has been added.

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