As many are unaware, the university has removed the safety net policy for students in their final year, as they feel that university life has gone back to normal and thus students do not require a safety net. This information should have been given at the beginning of the academic year, or they should have never offered it if they were going to revoke it as they were fully aware in-person teaching was to resume for this academic year. On top of that, there are modules that were still taught remotely and students who were forced to study remotely. This has given students a sense of false hope as the University has essentially lied about their intentions to assist us with study and failed to notify us in due course.

The rules have been established like this:

If you do worse in your third year (which is harder) then they will calculate your degree classification 60/40, if you have done better in the third year, then you will receive your third-year grade.

The fundamental point here is our degrees are not isolated to our final year, as students, we missed 2 years of normal education because of covid, it is absurd to presume that those 2 years are now redundant because in-person teaching has resumed this year. The University should not be implementing policies to students that they are going to revoke whenever they please.

Please sign this petition to reinstate the safety net policy for students whose studies have been vastly affected by COVID-19. This is to ensure the dignity of our degrees and studies.