Leading British universities are preparing to lower test standards in a bid to help improve the grades of ethnic minorities and poorer students in a major DEI initiative.
The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are among those preparing to implement “inclusive assessments” such as open-book exams and take-home essays rather than monitored in-person testing in the hopes of cutting the gaps between groups of students, The Telegraph reported.
In its annual Access and Participation Plan (APP) — a yearly report into how a university is seeking to improve the lot of disadvantaged student groups — the University of Cambridge said that traditional “assessment practices” may be responsible for varying performances among groups.
Cambridge said that it would specifically seek to “improve outcomes” for Black and Bangladeshi heritage students. The university went on to cite research from its own academics, finding traditional tests represent “threats to self-worth” for students.
Meanwhile, Oxford University’s APP reportedly said that it would seek to “use a more diverse and inclusive range of assessments” in order to “improve the likelihood” of better grades for students from “lower socio-economic backgrounds”.
The Office for Students (OFS), which regulates higher education in England, has reportedly backed the plans, and other Russell Group elite schools are considering following the example of Oxford and Cambridge.
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According to the OFS, there is a 22 per cent gap between white and black students in achieving an upper second-class degree and an 11 per cent gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students.
A spokesman for the Office for Students defended the idea of trying different approaches to improve results for some groups so long as courses remain “academically robust, credible, and a reliable reflection of students’ hard work.”
“Where there is evidence that current assessment models may not be fair, it is appropriate for universities to trial and evaluate changes in the way they grade students,” he added.
However, the moves have drawn criticism, including from former education minister Sir John Hayes, who said that easing testing requirements for the sake of certain groups was “deeply insulting to students from minority backgrounds” and that it would “undermine the integrity of the assessment process.”
In a reference to President Donald Trump’s recent initiatives to rid the United States government of DEI, Former Prime Minister Liz Truss quipped: “Please can we have an Executive Order that bans this anti-meritocratic nonsense.”
In October, Cambridge Professor John Marenbon warned that woke ideologues, through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, were actively attacking the idea of “the pursuit of excellence and truth”. Marenbon said the “attack is fierce, and it now threatens to destroy the universities, turning them into empty shells, institutions of advanced training without knowledge as their goal.”
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