In the recent days, the students of the United International University (UIU) made some proposals to the UIU authorities, principally in the areas of addressing their financial hardship caused by the nationwide Anti-Discrimination Movement; improvement of academic and research environment of UIU; and enhancement of different services rendered to the UIU students. The authorities of UIU welcomed those proposals (a total of 55 issues under 13 broad categories), and based on a document signed between the UIU authorities and some students of UIU, most of these proposals have already been either implemented or under process of implementation.
One of the most significant proposals of this group of students had been to change the existing Grading System of UIU, mainly to make it easier for the students to get higher numerical score against Letter Grades. Since this is an issue directly related to the quality/standard of the education provided by UIU and since UIU has built up a reasonably good reputation in the academic arenas and in the industry/job market based, among other things, on its existing Grading System, the UIU authorities decided to examine this critical matter further at expert level—before coming to a decision.
The matter was referred to an expert committee composed of some senior members of the UIU faculty. The committee was asked to examine the issue, particularly regarding the following aspects:
How UIU’s existing Grading System is addressing the issue of employability of UIU graduates; and
How the proposed changes in the UIU Grading System may impact, positively or negatively, the quality/standard of education provided by UIU.
The expert committee had deliberated on the subject at great length and examined all the relevant aspects of the UIU Grading System to see how the proposed changes would impact the UIU Grading System. The committee analysed the grading policies of a good number of leading universities both from home and abroad. The committee observed that the universities having lower numerical score for a particular letter grade (such as 80 for grade A, instead of 90) usually have a more stringent marking scheme to maintain their educational standard. The committee also noted that any university that fails to keep such a standard is ultimately branded as a sub-standard university by the employers and their graduates fail to get good jobs even if their CGPA is higher. When it comes to market perception in the job market, the committee noted that it does not have much of a correlation with the grading policy of a university; rather it has a strong correlation with the quality of the graduates.
The committee also looked at the situation as how the existing UIU Grading System is serving the students and graduates of UIU. Examining the average distribution of the grades achieved in different courses offered by the UIU in all the disciplines, the committee found that about 22% of the students achieved Grade A and it goes to more than 60% up to grade B. Only around 6% of students are receiving grade D. The committee thus opined that there was no indication that the grading policy of UIU is too stringent which might adversely affect the CGPA or employability of the UIU graduates.
The committee then examined the CGPA distribution of almost 13,000 UIU graduates (who have already completed their degrees), and noted that almost 25% of the students achieved a CGPA of more than 3.5 and more than 60% students achieved a CGPA above 3.0.
The Committee also looked at the available data on 7,689 UIU graduates, and found out that a total of 5,295 are employed at different levels. Further delving into the statistics, the committee noted that the percentage of formal employment in categories below CGPA 3 is close to 63%, and the rate of employment against higher CGPA is around 75%; the rest are self-employed or are otherwise engaged. The committee found no indication that a change in grading policy will have any significant impact on the employability of UIU graduates.
The committee is of the view that the changes proposed by some UIU students might send a negative message in terms of both employability of UIU graduates and overall quality/standard of the education provided by UIU.
Considering all the aspects of the matter, the committee has recommended to maintain the existing Grading System of UIU.
The authorities of UIU agree with the recommendation of the expert committee, and have thus decided to maintain the existing Grading System of UIU.
