This one is going to be sort of a rant. It's about how the UK university system screws up pastoral care and disability rights so royally whilst pretending to do the right thing. It's a crap situation that I was fighting for years from within the system when I worked in the UK universities and a decade later it is still going strong. I could scream. In fact everyone SHOULD scream.
Let's do a tale of two students. Both have something wrong with them. In one case it's a disability. An invisible one. In the other case it's a sense of entitlement and the morality of a syphilitic mongoose.
Student A.
Student A has a very high opinion of themselves quite unjustified in terms of either their work ethic or their ability. They have experience in how to manipulate the system. Often this comes from either run ins with benefits agencies, indulgent parents, boarding schools or other manipulable entities.
Student A does minimal work during the year, is late for coursework with no contact for extension and does poorly in tutorials. When the exams are approaching Student A, who has carefully read the regulations, finds a reason which is hard to disprove to submit an Extenuating Circumstances form.
Reasons I have seen vary from stress, missing a bus, having a cold, death of grandmother(one student did this 5 times), pet going missing all the way through to boob job. No kidding.
They do poorly in the exam but get to retake with no consequences because of the form. One student I knew did this at 14 consecutive exam dates.
They are unkillable because they know and abuse the system.
Student B
Student B has an invisible disability. Their doctor knows and they are coping with it but it limits available spoons. They perform pretty well through the year. Sometimes attendance varies. Sometimes they need more time on essays which they arrange with lecturers. They hit the exams and the stress makes their condition worse but they soldier on. They get an OK grade which is well below potential but a testament to their tenacity.
They had no idea that Extenuating Circumstances forms existed and because they are used to coping even if they had they probably think it applies only to people in car accidents not THEM.
So Student B gets shafted royally.
That's exactly how the system works folks. That's what happens time after time. Every exam board at a UK university knows it. They see it all the time. But they can't do much about it.
So what is broken here?
Simple answer is pastoral care. What used to happen and what should still happen is that each student gets a personal tutor who actually does their fucking job.
I used to have my tutees to tea once a week in my office. Give a student free cake and they always turn up. I asked them how they were.
Simple as that.
Doing that I caught 5 cases of undiagnosed dyslexia, one case of clinical depression and saw first hand the damage cfs/me can do (it's why I will get very mad at anyone who implies it's just yuppie flu. Killing mad).
I could tell my tutees to fill in the forms. Get them help. And when it came round to exam boards get up on my hind feet and defend them like a lioness defending it's cub.
But now the common experience is that personal tutors see tutees only once a year. Students often get a new one each year. Some even forget who they are.
The personal tutors are overworked yes. There is no credit for pastoral work yes.
But for the cost of different company at a tea break you were probably having anyway and at most 30 boxes of Mr Kipling you are failing your students and ensuring that the ones with invisible disabilities, the ones the system was written for are YET AGAIN being fucked up the wrong un with a very large pipe wrench.
I have no time for academics who say they can't fit it in. Your priorities are wrong. You are contributing to a bigoted system and you need to change. Do it or resign.
