Zero tolerance policy gets scrapped

Last Tuesday, during Union Council, Student Deputy President of Education, Luke McCrone announced a repeal to the university’s zero-tolerance late submission policy.

According to McCrone’s report given at the meeting, the zero tolerance policy will be replaced by a new policy, allowing grades capped at pass mark for late submissions, rather than immediate failure.

“Overall we have achieved an end of the zero-tolerance policy and a more forgiving deadline for out students.” Said McCrone, in his report for Tuesday, January 24.

The movement to repeal the zero-tolerance policy started last year following the release of the results from the 2015 National Student Survey. Following the results, the Union discussed a possible change with Imperial’s Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee (QAEC). At the first discussion the QAEC was skeptical of any sort of change, according to the report.

Following that initial discussion, two surveys were conducted regarding the late submission policy. The first one conflicted with views of some of the Senior Academic Representatives. In response to the debate caused by the results, a second survey was put out. A historic 9.13% of the student body responded to the poll; the majority of those who responded, 38%, voted in favour of the grade reduction.

Though the student body had voted for the ten percent reduction, the decision to cap late submissions at pass mark was negotiated at a meeting between the QAEC and college members. The parties agreed that an unlimited reduction system would allow students to “game” the system and provide less incentive to submit work on time. They also believed that students with mitigating circumstances branching from serious problems, such as poor health or family issues, would keep their issues to themselves rather than reach out to teaching staff for support, because of the diminished sense of urgency an unlimited reduction system would create.

According to his report, McCrone played an instrumental part in working with QAEC to get the new policy approved, “I was personally present at the meeting and made best efforts to stand by what students wanted,” he said.

On McCrone’s blog it read that he believed, “College rightfully acknowledged that this was a population of the student body which we could not ignore.” He concludes that “this is a momentous win for the Union and for students.”

*This article was amended on Friday 3 February 2017