When Trinity’s administration first conceived of the Trinity Education Project, they might have expected some resistance. Besides, this was a radical and long-awaited overhaul of an entire curriculum. Yet at every turn oppositions seems to have come as a surprise to College.
This week’s news that there is yet more anger brewing amongst staff at the lack of communication regarding major changes brought in under the Trinity Education Project revealed not just a bump in the road but a serious barrier to achieving the College’s grand ambitions and plans. While Trinity’s creative and ambitious revamp of the academic year is largely a much-needed departure from the rigid traditions, administrative and academic staff concerns – namely that they would have to return to work much earlier – would have been easy to predict, especially if Trinity had properly consulted with them.
There have been many decisions surrounding the project this year that have at best been met with eye rolls and at worst have incited all-out revolt among students. Trinity’s Christmas exam chaos, which was the first major thing that staff objected to, has seen College propose three exam sittings a day to accommodate them, and even under this proposal there literally will not be enough space within the currently used exam venues. When faced with a dilemma of how to arrange the funding for changing the system of exam repeats, College introduced an excessive charge for sitting supplemental exams. Changes to the academic year structure, Christmas exams and the system of progression and repeating years are central to the project’s aims.
All of this brings us to the question: just what is going well with the Trinity Education Project?
With many threads of the project lacking solid implementation dates and definite details, careful consideration of all possible barriers to introduction and consultation with the College as a whole will be necessary to avoid the same fate as the preceding innovations.
Trinity’s high-handed approach to carrying out this revolutionary project has led to more than simple teething problems. Instead, it has those who are supposed to benefit from it fearing the reality of its implementation.
