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THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1947
Exams cancelled amid travel chaos
ISSUE NO 717 | VARSITY.CO.UK JET PHOTOGRAPHIC
NICOLA BARTLETT
MML orals and mocks postponed after students and examiners left stranded KATIE FORSTER
The start of the Easter term has been disrupted for many students and academics due to the flight chaos caused by the volcano eruption in Iceland. Exams that were scheduled for this week were forced to be cancelled as many lecturers and students were unable to fly back to the UK from their homes or holiday destinations. All first-year and some second-year MML students received an email last Friday from their faculty informing them that their oral exams, which were to take place this Monday and Tuesday, had been postponed to a later date. The exams take the form of a short 15-minute discussion of an article in the foreign language studied. Some exams, such as Spanish orals, have been rescheduled for two weeks time in mid-May. Shannon Rainey, a first-year MML student at Christ’s College from Belfast, had been unable to return to Cambridge. She said that it was a “relief” that the orals had been cancelled as she would not have been able to make them. “I had a flight booked for last Saturday but it was cancelled, so I booked another for Tuesday but that one was cancelled too. The ferries are full and it looks like I won’t be back until this weekend at the earliest. I emailed my tutor and they were really nice about it, luckily.” Some students, however, have been very pleased about the postponing of the exams. Alice Kitcatt,
a student of French and Italian at St John’s College, said: “I was stressing out about having an exam before the start of term and so I was absolutely elated when I heard that it had been postponed.” Other University-wide exams that were scheduled for this week include papers for Engineering part II, a paper for part III Physics, preliminary exams for History part I, and the exam for Master of Finance. Students at St Catharine’s College received an email from their Senior Tutor, reassuring those worried that the flight problems would not harm their academic performance this term. Students were told: “Please do NOT worry about missing examinations, presentation deadlines or any other scheduled academic commitment,” and, “you will not be penalized for delays outside your control.” St Edmund’s College students similarly received a message from their Senior Tutor, reassuring them not to worry as alternative arrangements were being made. In addition to University-wide exams, many students were also scheduled to write mock exams within their Colleges, which had to be rescheduled on a case-by-case basis. The eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Southern Iceland has caused widespread chaos in Europe, notably the cancellation of all UK flights, which were only fully resumed on Tuesday evening. It was estimated that a million people were left stranded abroad in the biggest disruption to air traffic since 9/11.
Oxbridge state school pupil intake on the rise
Grand old Duke marches up hill
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tudents and staff at Fitzwilliam College were treated to a visit from the Chancellor of the University, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, on Monday as part of the official opening ceremony for the New Library & IT Centre. The building, which cost £5 million, was designed by Edward Cullinan Architects. The library is expected to house 60,000 volumes, as well as spacious study space featuring stunning views of the College grounds. After a short ceremony, HRH went on a tour of the College and admired the new building. HRH has taken an active interest in the development of the College: he was also present at the opening of the Fitzwilliam Auditorium in 2002, as well as the College’s recent 125th anniversary. ELLEN DAVIS-WALKER
Figures published last week by the Higher Education Statistics Agency have shown an increase in the number of state school pupils getting into Oxford and Cambridge. In 2008-9, 54.7% of new pupils at Oxford and 59.3% of those at Cambridge came from state schools compared to 53.4% and 57% of the previous year’s intake. But despite the increase, both universities fell short of their target. For 2008-09 this was just under 70%. Oxbridge were not the only universities to fall short of their target. Other universities included Bristol, Durham, Exeter and Oxford Brookes. The only Russell Group universities to exceed their targets were Sheffield, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Southampton and Queen’s University, Belfast. A spokeswoman for University of Cambridge told the BBC: “The University welcomes the way in which this year’s performance indicators reflect its efforts on widening participation, with state sector admissions reaching a high point of 59.3%, up more than two percentage points on the previous year’s figure.” “Cambridge makes great efforts to ensure that bright students from all backgrounds are admitted to the University,” she said, and Cambridge is “committed to maintaining those efforts in the future”.
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