Business school set exams in breach of College rules

Imperial College Business School has recently been conducting their examinations in a manner that has been deemed unfair by students and is potentially a violation of the College’s own policy. The breach of the regulations has been revealed by a student who wished to remain anonymous.

On Thursday 10 January, final year students on the management course were required to sit a two hour exam in the evening and then, seemingly against College rules, another the next morning. The first exam in itself may also not have meet the required standards and expectations.

A student has also told us that there were no sample/specimen questions and no past papers given to the students, all of whom were left in as state of uncertainty.

Speaking of the exam, Felix were told: “I didn’t even know how many marks or how many questions or what it was on!”

The exams were held for the School’s Joint Honours Programme, a course where students do the final year of their degrees full time in business. These difficulties therefore have a great effect on people’s entire degree and have the potential to gravely affect the relevant students.

Felix requested the relevant policy from Imperial and received a “College Notice” from last year for Management Board implementations. The document was written by Rodney Eastwood, the College Secretary at the time. The policy clearly states that, except for exceptional circumstances, students should not “be expected to sit an early morning examination after having taken a late afternoon examination the previous day.” The Business School seems clearly to be infringing this and, in doing so, negatively affecting its own students.

“I can confirm that Departments are individually responsible for setting their exam timetables but they have to work within the constraints of availability of suitable space on campus”, a College spokesperson of quality assurance, Laura McConnell (Assistant Registrar), responded.

Either the lack of enforcement of internal policy by Imperial College or the possibility that guidelines have to be bypassed due to lack of facilities are being raised as issues. There has been general concern through the student body, with people fearing that their course management may too think it acceptable to bend rules that have been set in place.

Any issues with examinations affect most people and not adhering to the rules or expectations during the exam times create greater difficulty, when those affected are under pressure and have greater priorities.

One student who fears this happening in his own department has said, “I wouldn’t want to be left in the dark or have to protest against this sort of thing when I’m revising for exams that will change my future”.