GPNAY – Union Council unanimously opposes the GPA

The Union Council this week unanimously passed a paper opposing plans by a number of UK universities to replace the current system of degree classification with US style grade point averages (GPA). The group of twelve universities – including King’s College London and UCL, but not Imperial – first published their plans in June 2011. The new system would involve students being assigned letter grades for each piece of assessment. Each grade would be assigned a numerical value between 0.00 and 4.25 with the final grade being a weighted average of these numerical values.

The Union Council, however, rejected arguments that the GPA was superior to the current system since it is better understood internationally and provides more information to potential employers. Instead the Council raised the point that the GPA would lead to a greater focus on marks rather than learning course material. This would further lead to more stress for students and might encourage some to take easier modules. It was also pointed out that introducing a new system would lead to more confusion. The currently proposed system would be particularly confusing as it would go up to 4.25 and not 4.00, as is the case in most US universities, and it would not “align itself with the one for A-levels, which is letter grade and percentages”.

The passed paper states that the Union believes that “Imperial College London should keep the traditional British degree class marking system” and that “switching to a GPA marking system would be a misuse of College resources”. The Council resolved to inform both the College and the group of universities which favour the change that the Imperial “student body opposes a GPA marking system”.

Speaking to Felix Debra Humphris, Pro Rector (Education), confirmed that there had so far been no discussions in College about changing the degree classification system.