OXFORD Brookes University believes students will be “more internationally recognised” when major changes about how degrees are graded are launched.

The university is set to be the first in the country to give students American-style ‘grade-point averages’, GPAs, at the end of their degree.

Alongside the familiar classifications of 1st, upper 2nd, lower second and third class degrees, students starting courses from September will receive a mark from 0 to 4 to be an average of all their work.

Staff are currently preparing information for students and employers explaining what the grades mean while IT experts are developing the computer code which will calculate the GPA.

Prof John Raftery, pro vice-chancellor of student experience, said information to students would include a warning that they could no longer wait until their final year to put in the hours.

He said: “Your first year does count. The old thing about drinking through the first and second year does not apply now.”

Local employers have welcomed the extra information.

Dr Martin Dare-Edwards, UK manager for specialist fuels company Infineum, which has its global HQ at Milton Hill, said the move was “eminently sensible”.

He said: “While the score and someone’s degree is not the final deciding point, anything that lets us to do earlier screening of applicants is helpful.”

Oxford Instruments, a hi-tech provider of tools based in Tubney Woods, Abingdon, has recently launched its first graduate programme.

Vicki Potter, group recruitment manager, said: “The international candidate pool tend to benchmark qualifications to the UK system, but it is encouraging to see a UK institution understanding the international jobs market.”

Frank Nigriello, of Oxfordshire Business First and director of corporate affairs at Unipart in Cowley, went to Long Island University and received a GPA but said gaining employment relied on far more information than a simple score.

He said: “The more information you have about the attainment of a student the better they can understand their potential.”

Prof Raftery said there was no plan to end recognised degree classifications.

HOW IT WORKS.

Under the grade point average system, all work completed by students is marked in percentage points and then converted to a number from 0 to 4.
 

Those grades are added up and divided to create a grade point average.
 

As well as receiving this at the end of their course, students are able to check on their current grade point average – identifying if they are dipping at any point.
 

The final grade point averages run from 0.0 to 4.0 and include each single decimal place in between.
 

Any student achieving a number under a 2.0 would fail to graduate.