Graduate standards in law

Transcript of the Graduate standards in law report, a study into the feasibility of developing benchmark standards for law and the role of the external examiner in supporting this, conducted on behalf of the Association of Law Teachers, the Committee of Heads of University Law Schools and the Society of Public Teachers of Law by Professor John Bell (University of Leeds) between July and November 1997.

The origin and context of the project

The project arose out of the Graduate Standards Project commissioned by the Higher Education Quality Council (now merged into the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) to examine the feasibility of two of its principal recommendations; developing benchmark standards for individual subject areas and changes which could take place in the role of the external examiner in supporting this.

In its final report the Graduate Standards Project concluded that it would be necessary to:

1. Establish a framework for describing awards in institutions.
2. Make explicit the criteria by which levels and standards of attainment are assessed in various subjects.
3. Give a larger role to external examiners in reporting on the standards achieved in individual institutions.

The Dearing Report has essentially adopted the same agenda with some modifications and embelishments. In particular, the report considers that key skills in numeracy, information technology, and learning to learn (here subsumed under autonomy) should be included as achievements of graduates from their programme of study. The report also envisages that students will leave university with a profile of their learning which goes beyond the conventional transcript or classification.

In its reponse to Dearing, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) envisages that:

• benchmark standards will be established at subject level by groups set up by QAA. These groups (no more than 40) would consult widely not only with academics, but also with employment interests and professional bodies. Institutions and their departments would then set more detailed standards in the light of these. The standards would be set in general terms and would be at a threshold level.
• registered external examiners will be appointed by QAA to a national register and be subject to monitoring by it. Their role would be threefold, involving different lines of reporting:
  1. as part of the internal examination process, they will report to the institution on whether its standards are being met, and the institution would remunerate them for this work
  2. as part of the process of public re-assurance, they will report to QAA on how far programmes are meeting the national subject threshold standards. They would be paid by QAA for this work
  3. as part of the process of professional accreditation, they will report to professional and statutory bodies on matters which concern them and would be remunerated accordingly

It is proposed that there should be three pilot studies, in law, history and chemistry. This pilot project aimed only to be a feasibility study and to identify the kind of work which would have to be undertaken to produce agreed criteria across the discipline and in sharing practice among those acting as externals.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010