The University of Glasgow has apologised to its students for the delay in the release of the exam timetable, which was eventually released on Saturday 19 March. The Glasgow University’s Twitter account informed students of the delay at 11am the previous day, tweeting: “Know lots of you wanting to know when the exam timetable will be released – the answer is early next week. Sorry for the wait folks.”
The University said the delay was caused by not all the schools providing information, and have assured students the timetable will be released as soon as possible.
The University originally planned to make the timetable available for April and May examinations available the week of 14 March. The University of Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, St Andrews, and Stirling have all had their exam timetables released.
Many students have voiced their angered at the delays. Angela Pollock, a student and mother of two children, told The Glasgow Guardian: “It’s another added stress for me, being a mum and doing a degree means I need to be super organised at all times. It’s not just sitters for the actual exam I need, it’s sitters to revise as well because the study period and exams fall at the Easter school break. The uni leaving it this long means it will be a rushed hassle to get something sorted, the longer it’s left the harder it is to get a plan together.”
Martin, a second year student, fears that the exam timetable delay may affect his ability to obtain an internship. He said: “The late publication of the exam timetables has meant that I’ve had difficulties applying and accepting internships during my spring break as I can not definitively state the possible duration of my internship. This has led me to rearrange the dates for the beginning and end of my internship already once. There is a real possibility of having to finish my internship early to fly back to Glasgow the day before an exam which could be prevented if the University would publish the timetables in advance. Not to mention, any return flights will be considerably more expensive rendering the monetary gain from the internship itself useless”.
Many international students have also raised concerns over the delays, such as Ebba, who says the price to change tickets around exam dates is contrary to the University’s internationalisation approach. She said: “Now the issue has been that I cannot afford to go home because of the price of flight tickets. I bought a ticket last week, which cost a fortune! But as I still do not know when the exams are, the trip is only for a week, unfortunately. I just find it really surprising that Glasgow is among the latest universities that I know of with releasing their exam dates and still, they manage to be delayed? To me, this does not really fit the international approach the University claims to have.”
As well as the delay, students believe the timetable, even if released on time, comes too late in the year, especially for international students and those with work commitments.
International student Julia Bambach told The Glasgow Guardian “A lot of us are reconciling work and studies and some of us, as international students, have families to visit. Late release of the exam schedule makes it very difficult for us to plan our lives. Some of us have to cancel our plans to see our families and all of us who will see our families will have to pay more money for travel(and it’s hard enough to get by on a student budget without this mess). Even if the exam dates would have been released this week, I think this still would be way too late. I don’t understand why we can’t know the schedule in February – by then everyone who would’ve dropped out/changed courses have done that, so numbers for the venues shouldn’t have changed massively between a month ago and now.”
The Glasgow Guardian has reached out to the University for a comment. The article will be updated with the University’s response once it is received.
