Thursday 10-03-2022 - 10:13

What is the Fit to Sit Policy?

Fit to Sit is a policy that was adopted by the university to replace the current Mitigating Circumstances (MITs) Policy. Both of these policies seek to address a situation where a student is not able to sit an exam/piece of coursework for unforeseen reasons (like an illness, bereavement, mental health difficulties).The Fit to Sit Policy is planned to be introduced during the academic year 2022/23.

These were the benefits of changing to the Fit to Sit Policy: 

• reducing the administrative burden on students to provide evidence.
• Other unintended benefits such as when students have lots of deadlines due at the same time so could use Fit to Sit to spread these out, or have booked a holiday before knowing dates of exams/submissions etc. so they use Fit to Sit so as not to lose an attempt.

However, the point of contention came at the last reading of the policy at the University Senate which has approval authority on policies such as these. It was here that the policy was slightly amended withdrawing the process of retrospective Fit to Sit. This fundamentally changed the Students’ Association position on the paper and we addressed this at the time. Even so, the policy was passed BUT with the recommendation that they look at a process for filling the gap left by withdrawing retrospective applications.

This year, the Students’ Association has been made aware that the Fit to Sit process is being decentralized which is a concern as previous experience tells us that this leads to inconsistent implementation of the policy and pushes administrative burden onto the already overburdened academic staff.

Our recommendations for changes to the Fit to Sit Policy:

• Addition of a Late Appeal (i.e. RetroMITs) process to allow students to self-declare as unfit after they receive results 
• Well-resourced, well-signposted centralised approach to administration of Fit to Sits and Late Appeals. 
• Extend the time to self-declare as unfit to 5 working days after submission/exam date. We believe this is a realistic timeline because Module Leaders can usually grant a 1-week extension, so it shouldn’t be too disruptive to marking. 
• Provide another opportunity at the next diet for the same Coursework/Exam to say they were still not fit – Could use the late appeal process (therefore requiring evidence and statement if applying for the same coursework/exam for the second time).

The feedback we got for now:

• It has been confirmed that it’s 5 days to self-declare (not 5 working days)
• The safety net has no time limit so students can contact Personal Tutor, Module Leader, Programme Leader, GCU Wellbeing Services or our Advice Centre (whoever they are comfortable with reaching out to in the university to discuss their circumstance if they wish to – all of the above named parties will be duly informed so there is consistency), so it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get a response, they are not limited by time. They can then be advised to fill an online form (can also be submitted on their behalf by the uni) and will also need to submit evidence. The HOD and ADLTQ will then process and work on it.

After much deliberation, the team will consider creating a safety net generic email should a student not wish to go through any of the above mentioned parties. (I will still need to confirm this will be added to the policy during APPC though).

Any student can be in this situation at anytime and that is why we are asking to add your voice as we fight for a better and safer system for our students.

To contribute your thoughts, kindly contact me at VP.GSBS@GCUstudents.co.uk

Priscilla Otuagoma
Vice President GSBS