A top university wants to scale back traditional exams and overlook grammar mistakes in a bid to be more ‘inclusive’.
King’s College London, part of the elite Russell Group, is overhauling assessment to ‘validate diverse knowledge systems and lived experiences’.
In addition, it has introduced new shorter word limits on essays, to prevent students being ‘overburdened’.
Lecturers have branded the overhaul ‘dumbing down’, while students have criticised the word caps in an open letter.
In a recent presentation of the changes, staff were told to give students a ‘choice in assessment formats’, such as coursework.
The new framework discourages ‘over-reliance’ on exams, with ‘more options’ added to how students can be assessed.
One of the slides shown to staff with the heading ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’ stated they should ‘focus on ideas, not grammar’.
It also said assessment should be ‘culturally responsive’ and ‘reward the use of culture, language and identity’.
Marking should be ‘inclusive’ and ’embrace linguistic diversity’, the slide said.
In a separate announcement, students were also told some of their essays will be capped at 1,300 words – down from 2,000 currently, to reduce academic stress.
However, this backfired when students slammed it in an open letter, saying it would stop them properly exploring their subjects.
One King’s College academic, who asked to be anonymous, said: ‘This whole framework, dreamt up by middle management to justify their existence, is about sending a message about which side of the culture war the university is on.
‘They seem to be claiming students are snowflakes and can’t cope, but students have set up a petition against it.
‘These young people are looking at the tough labour market and they haven’t got time for all this.
‘This is management trying to be ‘down-with-the-kids’ and classically getting it wrong’.
Hellbound and Down 