Degree system 'descending into farce' with universities 'setting their own standards'

Phil Willis, chairman of an influential committee of MPs, voiced astonishment there is no way of ensuring equal standards across universities.

His intervention came as the university watchdog declared that the historic honours system had 'reached the end of its display-by date' and was 'pretty much at the end of its use-by date'.

MP Phil Willis: "A university can award as many firsts as it wants as long as it satisfies their own criteria of what a first means"

Peter Williams told MPs that universities were effectively 118 awarding bodies approved to hand out their own degrees.

There was 'no evidence of consistency between subjects in institutions and between institutions', he warned.

But Mr Willis, Liberal Democrat chairman of the Commons universities committee, said: 'This has descended into farce.

'It goes right to the heart of what we're talking about.

'You're saying a university can award as many firsts as it wants as long as it satisfies their own criteria of what a first means.'

He spoke after figures showed the number of students achieving a first class degree has more than doubled since the mid 1990s.

Mr Williams, head of the Quality Assurance Agency, was summoned to the committee after warning that the traditional system of firsts, 2.1s, 2.2s and thirds is 'arbitrary and unreliable'.

While insisting it would be wrong to see universities as a 'wasteland of bad standards', he published a series of reports criticising universities' practices for awarding degrees, upholding standards and tackling plagiarism.

Mr Williams told MPs yesterday that the current system had been designed for the 'smaller higher education world'.

There was a need for a change to the system as it is now not fit for purpose, he said.

It prompted Mr Willis to warn that confidence in the degree classification system was all important as it is relied on by most employers and students seeking jobs.

The committee hearing yesterday reignited the debate over reform to the 200-year-old honours degree system.

A long-awaited review last year recommended a new system of transcripts detailing marks in individual courses alongside an overall grade but stopped short of calling for traditional classifications to be scrapped.

Mr Williams has previously warned the honours degree system has become 'meaningless.'

All universities used the same system but the abilities of students at different institutions differed widely, he warned.

'The way that degrees are classified is a rotten system,' he said. 'It just doesn't work any more.'

A series of whistleblowers went on to raise concerns anonymously about lax procedures for awarding degrees.

Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, said universities had recognised that the need for reform.

'But while we're publicly debating how students' achievements can best be recorded, it's important to be clear that the UK honours degree itself is a robust and highly valued qualification.

'While universities award their own degrees, all degree courses across the UK are based on a common set of definitions of qualifications, and descriptions of how standards apply in particular subjects.'