The University of Cambridge will reconsider the use of Tripos rankings and Saturday lectures for the next academic year, following a 15 month review of undergraduate teaching.

A vote of the University’s General Board – the body responsible for the University’s academic and educational activities and policies – confirmed the implementation of proposals from the Undergraduate Teaching review yesterday (09/04). The provisions of the review are designed to alleviate a “culture of overwork” in undergraduate degrees.

The proposed changes include reforms to tripos rankings, a commitment to abolish lectures over weekends, and the introduction of “buffer periods” from teaching in all courses. The changes will only apply to undergraduate courses.

The proposals have been welcomed by pro-vice Chancellor for education Bhaskar Vira, who told Varsity: “The University’s Review of Undergraduate Teaching was set up in response to students’ concerns regarding workload and the need to ensure University and College staff are appropriately supported.”

“The review group has made a series of recommendations to help manage workload and reduce often self-imposed competitive pressure, while maintaining the high standards for which Cambridge is recognised,” he continued.

These changes come after a University task force claimed that Cambridge had a “culture of overwork” that was negatively affecting mental health and wellbeing last year. The task force’s report recommended exploring “structural changes” to course organisation, to address “significant issues of pace and volume” for student workload.

Changes to tripos rankings – the practice of telling a student where they came in their cohort in annual exams – come after a long process of rolling back the tradition. The University used to publish results publicly on a board outside their head offices, but this tradition grew increasingly unpopular among the student community, sparking a campaign to end public class list displays.

Students were eventually offered the opportunity to opt-out of these rankings in 2017 following a petition from the Our Grades, Our Choice campaign that received over 1,000 signatures. The practice of publishing rankings publicly was then discontinued in 2021, but students are still told their ranking when receiving exam results.

Under new proposals students will no longer be told where they placed in their cohort, and will have to ask their Director of Studies for their ranking. Students who perform well in tripos will still be awarded University and college prizes for academic achievement.

The changes have been welcomed by Cambridge Students’ Union (SU) undergraduate president Sarah Anderson and access, education, & participation officer Katie Clarke, who told Varsity: “We are delighted the General Board has approved the teaching review recommendations, following the SU’s longstanding campaign to address Cambridge’s ‘culture of overwork’ through meaningful structural change. We welcome the move away from Saturday lectures, late-night supervisions, and the introduction of timetable buffers like the History Tripos’ ‘break weeks,’ all of which support the consolidation of learning and better balance.”

“We also look forward to the outcomes of the Board’s review of academic rankings. The current system places students in constant comparison with their peers, often overshadowing what are, nonetheless, brilliant results. This culture not only diminishes recognition of success but can also lead high-performing students to experience unsustainable pressure to maintain top results year after year. These reforms are an important step towards a more supportive and balanced academic environment – while preserving the rigour that defines a Cambridge education,” they continued.

Cambridge is the only UK University to use a class ranking system for all subjects. The University of Oxford also tells some students their placement within a cohort, but many subjects only notify students if they have placed highly in their cohort.

The tradition has been used since 1748 when it was introduced for Mathematics exams, before being implemented gradually across other triposes. Recent revisions to it have proved controversial among some academics, who claim that changing the system damages Cambridge’s reputation of academic excellence.

David Butterfield, a former classics professor, resigned his position at the University last year over the “infantilisation” of its educational programme. In a Spectator article announcing his resignation, Butterfield claimed the abolishment of public class rankings had “snuffed out much of the competitive spirit of the university” over a “desire to save students personal embarrassment”.

Multiple current Cambridge academics have also expressed concern about the new changes. Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Clare College fellow told The Times that, “The ‘mental health’ justification is a mask for a pernicious and dangerous agenda. It will cause more distress for students if their degrees are delegitimised by such egalitarian dogmatism!”.

These concerns were echoed by David Abulafia, Emeritus Professor of History and fellow at Gonville and Caius College, who stated: “If competitiveness is seen as dangerous, one might as well bid goodbye to universities such as Cambridge, which should be seeking to identify outstanding excellence and to prepare people for life in a highly competitive world.”

The review has also set out an overhaul of the structure of teaching hours. This includes a commitment to eventually remove weekend lectures from student timetables. Varsity understands that this change will take significant time to implement, in order to maintain choice in some STEM degrees.

Alongside the removal of weekend lectures, the review also includes provisions to prevent supervisions outside of an 8am-8pm window, and the inclusion of “buffer periods” for all triposes. Buffer periods are guaranteed time away from contact hours, with Veterinary Medicine already offering an afternoon a week without teaching, and History having a termly reading week.

The changes mark an ongoing drive to reform Cambridge’s curriculum in order to protect student mental health. Last year, the Cambridge SU conducted a survey investigating workloads, with almost 60% of respondents saying they were unable to complete the amount of work they received to a good standard. In response to this, Bhaskar Vira said “boundaries need to be imposed” to improve student welfare.

In a separate SU survey in 2020, 62% of students claimed that “the intensity of the academic workload in Cambridge is a barrier to making friends and having a healthy social life.”

There are also provisions to review how supervisors are paid, with a new system calculating payment in accordance with the amount of students supervised per hour, rather than just hourly payment.

This comes after a supervisor workload report found that some supervisors are paid an effective hourly pay rate £3 below the national living wage last year, when preparatory time supervisions was taken into account. Following the findings of the report, the Office for Intercollegiate services claimed that work was needed to achieve a “more reasonable level” for supervisor workload.

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