Coronavirus: Cardiff students take final exams from home

After four years of study Mared Pugh-Evans was due to perform before an audience for her final recital.

With campus exams cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, many final year students are now sitting their assessments online.

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama harpist will now perform in her Aberdare kitchen and then submit it online to secure her final grade.

"I will literally upload it and that'll be it," she said.

"The accumulation of my four years. It's just in that one click".

According to a survey by the National Union of Students, two thirds of students in Wales are worried about how the pandemic will affect their final qualification.

But universities say they have put a range of measures in place, including giving extra time to students to sit exams, to deal with issues such as internet connection during lockdown.

Like thousands of others, Jairaj Jandu should be doing his finals in an exam hall in Cardiff - instead he will be doing them from his bedroom in Nottingham.

The third year Cardiff University optometry student had six written exams which have now been moved online.

Once he has downloaded the questions, Jai will have 24 hours to complete the exam, and can use books and other resources, with checks in place for plagiarism.

"It's not really impacted me that much," said Jai, who said his tutors had been very supportive.

"I've not really changed the way I revise. It's more adjusting the way I answer questions because of the format."

"The main reason for the 24 hours isn't so we take 24 hours to do it," he says.

"It's if your wifi drops off, if you've got situations at home which need dealing with first, it's to give that leeway so that when you are ready to submit you can submit."

For students on performance courses, the final year is as much about the opportunities to perform in front of live audiences and showcase their skills as it is about formal assessments.

Dafydd Thomas, a final year BA acting student at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, was meant to be performing in a number of shows for his course, but many have had to be cancelled.

"A lot of the examinations and assessments we do are based on performances and how we react to an audience being there," the 22-year-old said.

"So it's hard to be assessed on whatever we're doing at the moment."

While Dafydd is waiting to find out when the rest of his course can be completed, he has managed to secure an agent and has played Mark Antony in a lockdown version of Julius Caesar and has performed in a new National Theatre Wales play recorded on Zoom.

"People don't really go to acting college for the grades themselves," he says.

"They go there to train and then to be put out in the world and try to get an agent. That's what everyone does in third year. The pressure is more on getting an agent before you finish than actually getting a BA or a degree".

The National Union of Students said Welsh universities had put "safety net" policies in place, so that students would not get a final grade lower than their average before the crisis.

But it said it was concerned how other factors, including a lack of equipment for students working at home, precarious housing situations, and caring commitments, could affect some students.

They want students to be offered a choice to complete studies "when they feel they are able to", for example, deferring the final term until the autumn or being awarded a grade based on prior attainment.

Universities Wales said members were using a variety of options in supporting students to graduate while ensuring "a fair and consistent approach throughout".

It said universities were being "as accommodating as they can and, on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration the individual students' circumstances and preferences".