Oxbridge Rejects School-Style Reports Alongside Degree Awards

Oxbridge Rejects School-Style Reports

Students at Oxford and Cambridge will not receive new school-style reports alongside their traditional degree awards, it was reported on Friday.

The prestigious institutions both said that they have no plans to introduce the Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR) - a detailed record of a student's time at university.

Oxford said they would not bring it in unless there was a demand from students and employers.

More than half of UK universities have already confirmed they are to bring in the record, it was announced last week.

This includes 14 out of 24 leading Russell Group institutions, the Times Higher Education magazine reported.

An Oxford University spokesman said that evidence from the pilot of the HEAR, as well as other feedback had found "a lack of interest from employers".

As a result, the university has "no plans to implement the HEAR, unless evidence of demand for it from our students or employers emerges".

A Cambridge spokesman said it had no plans to introduce the record.

The electronic report, similar to the reports children are given at the end of the school year, is expected to include more information on academic courses, such as module marks, as well as details of volunteering work, any prizes a student has won, additional qualifications that can be verified by the university and any other positions held, such as the captaincy of the hockey team.

It was recommended in the final report of a working group on the issue.

The move paves the way for the HEAR to take over from the 200-year-old honours classification system, which sees graduates awarded a first, upper or lower second or third, at some point in the future.

Professor Sir Robert Burgess, chair of the working group and vice-chancellor of Leicester University, said last week that it is important that students have a comprehensive record of all their achievements at the end of the degree course.

"The HEAR is designed to encourage a more sophisticated approach to recording students' achievements in the 21st century. It will benefit students, employers and higher education institutions themselves.

"Our previous report identified the damaging obsession with 'first' and 'upper second' degree classifications and it is now clear that this is not enough detail for students and employers. The aim of the HEAR is to provide the wider picture of a student's achievements."

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