KentVision team apologises for delayed final year results

Nathan Collins-Cope 8 July 2021

Image courtesy of Unsplash/Charles DeLoye

On Thursday 1 July, final year students at the University of Kent were expecting to receive their highly anticipated results, rounding off their degree and propelling them onto the next stage of their lives. However, these results did not become available, with seemingly no explanation.

An email was sent to the concerned students that evening, informing them that they would not receive their results until some time the following week. This was reportedly due to an error in the newly launched KentVision platform, a multimillion-pound piece of software which was intended to streamline and unify the university’s digital operations.

Student communications acknowledged that final years ‘will have been hoping to receive [their] results from today onwards, and a further wait may cause [them] some anxiety’.

A second email was sent the following day, in which the university apologised for the delay, stating that they were: ‘hoping to have these [results] available from the 1 July, but were aware that the time it takes to process the results meant this could take a day or two longer’.

A video produced by Ethan Basso from the independent student-ran organisation, SabbWatch, pointed out that this meant that the university knew there would be a delay, yet still proceeded to tell students that they would be in possession of their results on the 1 July.

Basso stated: ‘They knew this was likely to happen and they gave no warning,' and that he had no doubt that other students felt, ‘pissed off at the university for fucking them over again’.

‘They apologised, which is good, but it's too little too late’.

He went onto further express his frustration by stating: 'There is a reason we have declined so massively since I joined four years ago, in every league table, and there is a reason that students are unhappy – it's because of bullshit like this that keeps on happening'.

InQuire spoke to Rory Bathgate, a final year student at the University of Kent, who said the situation was a, ‘very demoralising end to what has been a thoroughly disrupted year. Along with the fact that I have to wait at least another four anxious days to see my final results I, like many other final year students, spent all day Thursday nervously refreshing KentVision and my emails.’

‘Students should have been told as soon as the problem was identified, and I’m disappointed that even now Monday is only expected to yield results for the vast majority of students rather than all of us’.

Another student – whose reaction was sent to and read out on SabbWatch, Becky King, stated that her ‘literal future’ is being ‘delayed by laziness and incompetency’ on the part of the university admin.

Becky described the situation as a, ‘complete lack of respect, care or understanding from the uni,’ for having students wait longer with no definitive date for when results would be released.

As of 5 July 2021, most final year students have now received their overall grade.