Universities ‘failing to mark down students’ for poor writing skills

England’s higher education regulator says that universities and colleges are failing to mark down students for poor spelling, grammar and punctuation, which is leading to grade inflation because of a misguided application of equalities legislation, writes Richard Adams for The Guardian.

After a review of assessment policies at five institutions, the Office for Students said it feared that staff being allowed to ignore errors in students’ written work was “widespread”. It warned that it was willing to punish universities for failing to tackle poor writing skills.

The review follows cases this year of institutions using “inclusive assessment” policies more widely, and only taking quality of writing into account in courses where it was deemed to be critical, leading to condemnation from ministers.
Full report on The Guardian site