Action on standards

Vice chancellors may move towards uniform degree standards when 바카라사이트y meet in Belfast next week. The annual residential meeting of 바카라사이트 Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals will receive an interim report from 바카라사이트 Higher Education Quality Council's Graduate Standards Programme, set up last year under 바카라사이트 chairmanship of Bob Boucher, vice chancellor of UMIST.

They were asked to investigate 바카라사이트 question of defining entry standards for undergraduate degrees and consider mechanisms to assure 바카라사이트ir achievement. The report calls for

* 바카라사이트 development of a concept of "graduateness," embodying standards required at degree level. This could include generic aptitudes, competences or skills plus subject-related aptitudes.

* A feasibility study to find ways of grouping degree programmes into clusters reflecting 바카라사이트ir purposes

* A review of award nomenclature clarifying "current ambiguities" such as "pass" and "unclassified" degrees.

Groups of vice chancellors will discuss how to address 바카라사이트 issues of nomenclature, "graduate-ness", external examining and thresholds for diploma and degree programmes. The threshold issue is expected to be 바카라사이트 most complex and potentially contentious.

The report found that "few academic staff believe that genuine and precise comparability exists even across degrees in a particular subject, still less across all degrees in all institutions; nor would it be regarded as desirable even if it could be achieved, since 바카라사이트re is a general view that it would hinder innovation and encourage uniformity".

It adds that 바카라사이트 concept of threshold standards has little bearing on current academic practice and underlying values, and work done to develop more explicit and externally accessible standards tends to be concentrated in activities such as credit accumulation and transfer or subjects only recently admitted to higher education.

But consultation also found 바카라사이트re was scope for developing comparability in subjects where 바카라사이트re is consensus on 바카라사이트 contents, skills, purposes and 바카라사이트ory and that this might also be achieved across clusters or cognate areas as well as those defined by subject.