"Dumbing down of university grades revealed"

[itsawonderfuldarleneconnorlife]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8235115/Dumbing-down-of-university-grades-revealed.html

I'm quite shocked at how many more 1sts and 2:1 are given now.

Why cant students just be given an average % when they leave to make it easier to differentiate different graduates?

As well as his masters engineering degree certificate. ( a 1st by the way!) my son has another certificate which he got on his graduation day which has all his marks on for every formal exam he took at the University of Nottingham.
I believe some employers definitely are interested in seeing these marks as it shows how near to the boundaries you were.
His average was 78 per cent over 4 years.
He worked extremely hard for 4 years to get this 1st which was just reward for the effort he put in.
Christmas and Easter holidays for him were long days of revision in his room, and his summer holidays were 9 - 10 weeks working for his sponsoring company.

God my holidays were 14 hour a day shifts earning enough to live the next term. I am very proud of my 2;1

I don't understand why all exams aren't marked so that the top 10% get a first / A next 10% get a 2;1/ B next 10% a 2:2/c and so on. That would seem sensible. I understand that regulating it across different examination boards etc would be difficult but not an insurmountable problem

Just to confirm that Nottingham (and probably most universities) lists all exam marks on the back of the bachelor's degree certificate. I'd imagine that most graduate employers know this and may wish to look at these marks when considering candidates.
Back in my far off day, a first was only awarded to around 5% of candidates (i.e. the very able who put in a lot of work), 2.1s to 30-40%, 2.2s to a similar percentage and 3rds/pass degrees to the rest. It was then respectable to get a 2.2, which is now seen as near failure.