If you’ve got Covid-19 and can’t sit an exam, that no longer means you automatically get an extra resit. Starting this academic year, Covid-19 is a ‘regular illness’ according to the UG.
‘The UG considers Covid-19 a regular illness, just like the flu’, says spokesperson Anja Hulshof. ‘It’s a change from last year, because so many people got ill back then. Fortunately, many people have since been vaccinated.’
How this will affect people’s chances at a resit, Hulshof can’t say. ‘It varies per faculty.’
Exam committee
It does mean that students will have request an extra resit through their study adviser the exam committee. The latter will then decide whether the student has a right to one.
The law faculty considers Covid-19 a ‘regular illness’, says dean Wilbert Kolkman. But: ‘the exam committee can decide to be lenient’. That means that law students could be allowed an extra resit if they miss an exam or a resit because they’re ill.
So can arts students, says vice dean Roel Jonkers. ‘The exam committee plans to grant students an extra chance.’ But the arts board is still talking to the legal department to find out if they can require students to prove that they were ill with Covid-19.
Custom work
The Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (BSS) appears the be the most lenient concerning resits and Covid-19 right now. ‘The BSS policy is to judge each case individually’, says vice dean Klaas van Veen. ‘Some exams have online alternatives. If those are lacking, people will be given an extra resit if they need it.’
While BSS is doing custom work, the Faculty of Economics and Business will follow the general UG guidelines and consider Covid-19 a ‘regular illness’. ‘As it stands, we have no special dispensation in place’, says vice dean Manda Broekhuis. The faculty board did agree with the faculty council that they’ll keep track of the number of students citing Covid-19 as a reason to miss exams.