GMIT abolishes appeals board

GMIT abolishes appeals board that upgraded 8% mark to pass

March 18, 2011 - 7:15am
Major shake-up of college procedures after shock newspaper revelations
By Dara Bradley

Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) will abolish an exams appeals board that was being abused by some students in order to have fail marks upgraded to pass, the Galway City Tribune has learned.

Disbanding the Aegrotat Appeals Board forms part of a major shake-up of the institute’s new procedures in relation to the handling of exam cheats, student appeals and improving standards within the college following a series of damaging revelations in this newspaper.

The Aegrotat Board was set up in GMIT in 2006 to review cases of impaired student performance immediately prior to and during exams. For example, if students were ill or suffered family bereavement at the time of exams they could appeal their results to this board.

But lecturers had become increasingly exasperated that students were abusing this review mechanism. In one recent instance, Dr Gay Keaveney, a chemistry lecturer with 32 years experience within GMIT’s School of Science, complained that the Aegrotat Board had upgraded four students’ fail marks (8.5%, 8.5%, 14% and 18.5%) to pass even though the external examiner “agreed that there was nothing in what they had written that would warrant them getting a pass”.

In a statement this week the college said the Academic Council of GMIT has “recommended to the Governing Body that the Aegrotat Board be dissolved”. This recommendation is expected to be ‘rubber-stamped’ by the Governing Body at a meeting on March 31.

The abolishment of the Aegrotat Board means that student representatives will have less influence on whether or not students have their exam marks upgraded on appeal. Students always had two Student Union representatives on the Aegrotat Board but will not be represented on the Examinations Board.

GMIT Students Union Vice-President, Joe O’Connor, said he had no comment to make when contacted by the Galway City Tribune. The Examinations Board is seen by lecturers as a far more democratic way of dealing with reviews.

Another major shift in policy to be introduced is that students will no longer be allowed to progress into the next year of their course without having passed all subjects.

Up to now, bizarrely, there had been cases where students advanced to their third and final years even though they hadn’t passed certain subjects in semesters in their first and second years of study at GMIT. This practice will no longer be allowed.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.

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GMIT abolishes appeals board that upgraded 8% mark to pass | Galway City Tribune | galwaynews.ie