I want to start this piece by making the point that fees for supplemental exams are not just an issue for the perceived dossers or for the people who just couldn’t be bothered putting in the hours. Fees for supplementals – and I’m sure not only the 700 students who sat supplementals last year would agree – are a fundamental issue.
Trinity has traditionally, as the Vice-Provost, Chris Morash, was keen to underline at Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union’s (TCDSU) council on Tuesday, differed from every other university in Ireland in that it did not charge students to re-sit failed exams in August.
Students have the opportunity to resit as many as exams as necessary at no additional cost whatsoever. This all looks set to change, as College is now proposing a potential charge of €200 per exam repeated, with a proposed cap at five exams. This would mean the minimum cost of summer repeats would be €200 and the maximum a whopping €1,000.
I can’t imagine many students will disagree with me when I say that this, most emphatically, is not a good idea.
It doesn’t give people second chances, which is something I think is fundamentally important
Firstly, let’s consider the fact that it’s going to cost €200 to repeat irrespective of the module that is being examined. Not all modules are created equal. We all know friends who study very different degrees with remarkably different levels of difficulty.
This kind of blanket reform is not a good idea because it fails to account for the nuances and specificities of individuals and their circumstances and while the Trinity Education Project promises fewer exams, it cannot work miracles overnight.
I also think this new reform is harsh. It doesn’t give people second chances, which is something I think is fundamentally important. Ireland functions – somewhat, but that’s a story for another article – as a welfare state. If things don’t go quite right for you, there is a support system there, if not to catch your fall then at least to give you a soft landing. It’s all very well to elevate the idea of individual responsibility and accountability, to say that when life gives you lemons you ought to somehow make lemonade. But lemonade needs sugar and a juicer – in short, when things go badly for whatever reason, we all need some kind of help.
Free supplemental exams recognise the fact that sometimes things just don’t go to plan. And that’s OK, too. It allows for a second chance, without casting judgment. For me, free supplementals send a strong message that Trinity is a nurturing, supportive university that allows students to make mistakes sometimes. It speaks to the value in a potential for learning
Attendance at university shouldn’t be predicated on what company your dad works for, or whether you can manage to work part-time in Aldi
Let’s add to that the simple financial cost of fees. It currently costs over €3,000 to attend Trinity as an undergraduate. Charging for exams could raise this by an additional €1,000 – with no guarantee that the student will pass the supplementals. This makes the cost of going to Trinity, already very high thanks to our location in one Europe’s most expensive cities, prohibitive.
Not only could this stop people coming in the door on day one, but it could also lead to plenty more being turfed out during their degree because of an inability to pay these additional costs. This is not fair, obviously.
Attendance at university shouldn’t be predicated on what company your dad works for, or whether you can manage to work part-time in Aldi to support your master’s in psychology. Making it about money, paradoxically, makes college a poorer place.
I understand that from the financial side College might argue that many students are in receipt of a grant. But many, many more are not or are on the borderline where they don’t quite meet the criteria. Even middle-class students often struggle for money. So the prospect of this change is troubling for pretty much everyone and it brings a huge amount of additional anxiety to exams and exam season.
But let’s continue to have a college that values supporting students in both their successes and their failures
As if we needed it – I can’t be the only one for whom exam season means sleepless nights, panicky days and a somewhat misdirected pride in somehow managing to maintain socially acceptable levels of personal hygiene. The looming prospect of potential fees to repeat exams adds pressure to students about to sit exams. It heightens anxiety and makes this a mental health matter. And if mental health matters to the College, as it claims, they would do well to drop this proposed introduction of supplemental exam fees.
I accept that this proposed change does, admittedly, force students to take responsibility. It may act as a deterrent to those intending to strategically fail. It may even encourage students to work harder so as to avoid having to repeat exams in August.
But let’s continue to have a college that values supporting students in both their successes and their failures. Let’s not make Trinity a place to buy a degree or a place that puts undue stresses and anxieties on an already stressed out student population.
