Edinburgh Students Against Reduced Easter Exam Period
Registry is currently proposing to reduce ALL honours' (3rd, 4th and 5th year; first AND second semester) Easter exams into a single *two week period*. On top of this they will also reduce our Easter break by one week therefore reducing our revision period. It is understood that this is due to Innovative Learning Week, which has been designed to 'improve your university experience'.
We, the students of The University of Edinburgh, categorically state that cramming potentially 10+ exams into a two week period AND reducing our revision period is NOT an improvement of our experience. This change will in fact be detrimental to our overall examination performance; in contradiction to the aims of Innovative Learning Week.
Therefore, we, the students of The University of Edinburgh, demand of Registry that they restore the usual Easter exam timetable; that is two weeks for semester 1 exams followed by *another* two weeks for semester 2 exams. [edit: as well as the usual extra single weeks either side of this for 'over spill' exams', making it a 6 week exam period in total]
EDIT: This petition was forwarded to Registry and it was requested that the following was claified: The current exam period for Honours is 3 weeks, commencing April 30th. And also; decisions regarding the structure of the Academic Year and the timing of exams etc are not taken independently by Registry but rather by University committees such as Curriculum and Student Progression Committee which reports to Senate (both of which I believe have student representation). The decision to hold honours exams over 3 weeks was arrived at with consultation with Colleges and EUSA.
It still stands that we have one less week of revision (due to the now two week Easter vacation) and one week less of exam time. It also still stands that these decisions were made without student consultation, as highlighted by Craig's clarification. To date we have recieved no student wide message from Registry, any other depatment of the university or even EUSA, regarding this situation, either in its early stages or in its current stage.
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