Staff at Durham University have blamed the institution¡¯s major restructuring programme for errors seen in student exams.

Several assessments at the Russell Group institution have been disrupted this year?because of administrative problems.

In one instance students sitting an engineering paper did not receive a data table booklet, which was needed to answer half the questions in the exam, until halfway through.

A ¡°severe adverse circumstances process¡± has been submitted on behalf of the students and the incident is being reviewed.

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Meanwhile, a history exam included an incorrect question from a different module. This was removed and the correct question posted after approximately a half-hour delay and students were given extra time. Typos were reported in four other papers.

The university said the ¡°vast majority¡± of its 48,000 exam sittings were running smoothly but the Durham branch of the University and College Union (UCU) said the issues, first reported by the university¡¯s student newspaper,?, demonstrated the problems being caused by cuts.

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Durham announced in January that it was looking to make??20 million in staff savings,?mainly affecting?professional services staff, after it reported an?.

It recently confirmed that about 200 staff have agreed to take voluntary severance, with more roles lost?through vacancies not being filled. In total, the professional services division is set to shrink by between 10 and 15 per cent this year.

While most of those departing had not yet left the university at the time of exam season, which runs between 12 May and 6 June, UCU said normal operations had been disrupted by?the ongoing changes.

Katie Muth, communications officer for the UCU branch, said the redundancies occurring during exam season had made a ¡°pinch-point¡± period ¡°even more difficult¡±, especially because remaining professional services staff have been moved from their individual departments into a centralised hub.

¡°We do certainly think that there are links between this and the broader decisions made by the university,¡± she added.

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¡°A lot of the ways that we¡¯re used to processing exams and other end-of-year assessments have gone out the window. There¡¯s a lot of chaos and confusion, because we¡¯re working at the very last minute under a totally new regime of how things work.¡±

She likened the situation to the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, where ¡°we were all changing our ways of working in order to mitigate a crisis¡± but said this situation had been self-induced.

A Durham spokesperson said that the claim?¡°made by Durham UCU that errors in a small number of exam papers were due to staffing changes is wrong¡±.?

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¡°Exam papers were set well before staff began to leave the university under the current voluntary severance scheme, and the process change referred to is entirely within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, not affecting the department of engineering. The errors were simply human errors.¡±

The spokesperson added that the university felt the ¡°picture painted of the exam season by Durham UCU is similarly erroneous. Six errors have been identified, from 700 exams, and 48,000 sittings. The vast majority of exams have run smoothly.¡±

¡°If any issues do arise from exams, we have procedures in place to minimise disruption to students, and to ensure this does not impact outcomes,¡± they added.

UCU previously voted to take three additional days of strike action in its ongoing dispute over the university¡¯s refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies, after having already taken five days of strike?action throughout April and May.

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Exam errors have also been identified at the University of Bath, with??that one computer science exam was alleged to have had numerous errors in it, while a three-hour physics exam was cut short because the exam room had only been booked for two hours.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com