Edinburgh Uni didn’t fail a single finalist in 2017

Edinburgh University didn't fail a single finalist student last year, according to a Freedom of Information request by The Sunday Times.

Edinburgh, along with Oxford and Durham, were among eleven universities that did not fail a single student, while at 32 other universities, fewer than one per cent failed their finals.

Lord Adonis, former education minister, told The Sunday Times: “It is not credible that none, or virtually none, will fail to make the grade. This yet again raises the issue of standards and universities’ obsession with milking revenue out of students without requiring enough in return.”

Despite the fears for standards, however, there are a number of explanations as to why Edinburgh's final year students would be unlikely to fail.

For example, it is very unlikely a failing student would have progressed to the fourth year of their degree without being rejected going into honours, or at the end of third year.

Plus, although most students go faint at the thought of getting even a 2:2 classification, in Edinburgh a third is still considered a pass, and for that all that is needed is 40 per cent.

As well as this, the data released covered students who completed their degree courses and do not include those who dropped out. The majority of students at Edinburgh drop out in first year and this number diminishes over the four years. Although this may be for a number of reasons, those who drop out because of low grades would have normally done so by their finals.