1. The Union should lobby UCL to implement better support mechanisms for students who are required to resit the year, whether due to a failure to pass the year or as a result or exceptional circumstances.
2. The University should set up support pages/guides on what the next steps are following unsuccessful attempts at modules.
3. The Union should lobby UCL to ensure departments point students in the right direction.

This is the same policy idea that was presented in EZ2405 but, was only rejected due to a lack of quorum.

 

2. Why would you like to do this?  
 For as long as I can recall, UCL has had students who have needed to resit a year. This can be due to taking a brief sabbatical from their course for personal, financial or health related reasons, or as a result of being unable to sit the Late Summer Assessments. As it stands, whilst there is guidance on what happens academically for a student who is resitting the year [1], there is no guidance set out to departments to ensure students can get support applying for Student Finance, request support from Student Support and there are no safeguards in place to ensure students are able to get said support.

Whilst there is a very brief guide set out by UCL [2], this does not extend to students who would be on an extended program e.g., Medicine. These courses normally result in a student getting a degree, making them ineligible to receive additional funding support from SFE without a severe mitigating circumstance [3].

References:
[1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/academic-manual/chapters/chapter-4-assessment-fra..
[2] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/news/2024/jul/results-day-next-steps-tho..
[31 https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/who-qualifies

 

3. What effect will this have on student life? 

No recent bulletin from either the Students’ Union or the Provost has detailed the support available to students, leaving many at the mercy of the support offered by their departments which can vary wildly.

For reference, I am still awaiting support from my department for my resit year despite trying desperately trying to get in contact with people over email in the summer break. As this can also affect offers students hold for postgraduate study, more needs to be done to ensure students are not ignored when they need help the most.