Option to boost grades to be removed
Bildtext
Engineering students’ right to repeat examinations in order to obtain higher grades will be removed from all course instances, effective 1 July 2021. This was recently established by the Vice-Chancellor.
Since 1996, students studying the Faculty of Science and Technology’s engineering programmes have been permitted to re-sit examinations with the aim of improving their grade – referred to as plussning in Swedish, or ‘boosting’. Advocates for the practice have argued that this option is offered at a number of Sweden’s higher education institutions and is a competitive advantage.
However, as the trend for courses to be taken in parallel by students from different programmes has increased, boosting has become more controversial. More and more often, both Bachelor’s and Master’s students are taking the same courses in these study programmes, and the Master’s students do not have the same option to re-sit examinations in order to improve their grades. The result is that students taking the same course are treated differently, which is also having a negative impact on the work environment for teaching staff.
Marie Chajara Svensson