10 Ungrading – A Systematic Change is Coming

For anyone who is reading this, they will not remember the life before the “letter grading” in the academic institutions. From the moment we enter the school life, our are assessed in various ways and are given a “letter” grade based on our performance. This grading gets embedded into our heads as we are required to continuously look for A’s in order to get into a good higher education institution, or a certain educational program, or even a particular job role. The has always been a long debate on why the grades should be abolished completely and the recent Covid-19 pandemic has only brought the topic of “ungrading” in the main spotlight.

A Brief History of Grading:

The first ever grading system was used in Yale back in 1785, however, the current grading system did not get established until 1897 by Mount Holyoke College (Durm, 1993). The widespread use of the letter grades started in 1940s but even in 1971 only 67% of the schools in the USA used letter grades (Lee, 2020). Grades are a relatively recent phenomenon in the academic world, which has its origins rooted back to the 16th century (Gray, 2008).

In the recent years, there have been plenty of debate whether or not to grade students. This debate isn’t surprising because majority of the educational history was carried on without the needs for any formal grading system. The recent pandemic has only accelerated the need to abolish grades altogether as they are adding a lot of stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues among students. Although there are many challenges before a complete elimination of grades can be implemented on a global scale, but the changes have to start now and they have to start from within.

This paper will focus on the following three areas: 1) Covid-19 and its impact on grading, 2) Why “Ungrading” should be implemented even beyond the pandemic, and 3) How employers are already shaping up their working environment where newly graduated students’ are hired based on their skills/knowledge rather than their grades.

1.     Covid-19 and its Impact on Grading:

The academic system is designed so that students get into good colleges or universities based on their grades, they get scholarships based on their performances, and also they can only stay within the college or university if their GPA is over a certain minimum. This puts immense pressure on students to constantly focus on their grades.

This issue has been exposed further in the wake of the global pandemic. Students are, more than ever, facing many different challenges during Covid. Some of these challenges include mental health issues, anxiety, depression, lack of financial support, access to technology etc. In a survey of over 7,000 college and university students, in the USA, it highlighted that approximately 38% of the students will not have enough funds to last through the term, 56% of the freshmen cannot afford tuition anymore (Leonhardt, 2020). Many of these students also expressed that it is hard for them to keep up with their academic performance while deadline with financial difficulties. One student even discussed how they are having difficulties maintaining their GPA and credit requirements in order to successfully meet the scholarship requirements (Leonhardt, 2020).

2.       Ungrading – Why its a Long-term Solution:

Although the grade changes (mentioned above) are welcomed, but they are being implemented for the time being and the original grading scheme might be brought back when times change. The topic of ungrading needs to be seriously considered for a long-term.

When we examine the curriculum set-up in academia (including primary and secondary schools), the way the courses are taught and the assessments are implemented, one would realize that there is hardly any flexibility built into the courses for students to succeed. It’s a one size fits all solution that the experts believe works for everyone. One of the students in the “Straight-A vs Flunking Students” video highlights this issue beautifully when he says that everyone learns different and the schools put them all through the same way of testing assuming that everyone would learn best the same way and he also called it being “one sided” (Jubilee, 2019).

Standardized testing and strict policies around developing and implementing assessments does not allow students to shine and showcase their strengths in different ways because of the lack of flexibility.

Standardized testing has long been used as one of the main benchmarks by many higher education institutions in developed and developing nations for accepting or rejecting students in certain programs. The pandemic has increased the income inequalities (more on this later) and as the classes have now shifted online, the gap has shown that students from low-income families do not have enough money to own a proper computer, adequate internet access, proper study areas etc. (Webster, 2020). Such students are normally the ones who fail standardized tests because they do not have the resources to compete with the students who come from high- income families. Standardized tests, such as SATs, actually hinder student success as not every student is able to perform well on tests. In fact, studies show that students who don’t take these tests but have good grades, are good at writing essays, and have higher ranks in classes, perform as equally as the students who submit standardized tests results (Webster, 2020). According to Oxfam International, the world’s poorest will take over 10 years to rocket from the pandemic (Euronews, 2020). So, one can only imagine the impact this will have on the students from the poor and underdeveloped areas even within the developed nations. Although some top colleges and universities in the USA are abandoning the use of standardized tests by 2025, there are still those who refuse to abolish it (Webster, 2020).

3.       Workplaces Are Helping the Shift to “Ungrade”:

Few years ago, if you went for your first job interview at a big firm, they would most likely look at your academic performance as one of the main factors in determining whether or not you are the right fit for the role. However, as mentioned above, the grades have been inflated over the years. In fact, research shows that 43% of all grads, on average, had an increase of 28 and 12 percentage points in their grade since 1960 and 1988 respectively (Kamat, 2019). Therefore, grades alone cannot be considered as a main factor in hiring talented students anymore.

In addition to Covid-19, there is also a Fourth Industrial Revolution taking place where the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation will be the key driving forces of the future workforce. Therefore, it is imperative that the current students focus more on developing skills, which will make them unique prospect for future jobs, rather than simply focusing on the grades. A powerful example of AI is clearly visible in the content found currently on the internet.