John Raftery, Pro-Vice chancellor of student experience at Oxford Brookes University, talks about university life:

Classes of British university degree such as a First, Third or 2:2 are, sometimes irreverently, referred to as a ‘Geoff ‘(Hurst), a ‘Thora’ (Hird) or a ‘Desmond ‘ (Tutu).

This rhyming slang highlights not only the British (or more precisely, Cockney) love of word-play, but also the uniqueness of the degree classification system which has been in place for 200 years.

Oxford Brookes presents a new challenge for the development of rhyming slang with its recent announcement that it is to be the first mainstream UK university to introduce a new record of achievement known as the Grade Point Average (GPA).

New? Really?

Well, new to the UK only, as approximately 1.5 million American students graduate – with a GPA – from “college” each year.

Brookes will continue to provide students with traditional degree classifications but we believe our introduction of the GPA will provide an improved – and additional – method of recognising student achievement.

Under the GPA system ‘everything counts’.

In the traditional British classification system, much depends on “finals”, the exams taken at the end and also on the work in the last year of study.

This captures the ‘destination point’ and is a good measure of what the student has achieved at the end of the programme of study.

GPA recognises student work from the beginning of first year and throughout the entire programme.

The jaded impression of students, which still persists from TV programmes such as The Young Ones, simply no longer represents how life is for students today.

The vast majority of modern students are committed throughout their studies and eager to ensure their CVs are the best they can be when entering a very competitive job market.

The GPA will help to further recognise their work across their time of study.

It also helps avoid what we call degree ‘cliff-edges’.

Under the current degree classification system one percentage point can mean the difference between one classification and another, say a 2:2 and a 2:1.

The GPA is recognised internationally and in an increasingly globalised world it opens up options for those who graduate from Oxford Brookes.

We hope employers and businesses here in Oxfordshire also come to recognise GPAs when considering Oxford Brookes students for roles alongside graduates from North America or any of the many other countries where GPAs are calculated.

We are confident other universities will follow Oxford Brookes’ lead in adopting this innovative new approach.

The Universities Minister David Willetts has asked for a national pilot scheme and I am a member of the advisory board for the project, which is being co-ordinated by the Higher Education Academy.

It is highly likely over the coming years we will see other experiments along these lines, and here at Brookes we intend to assess the impact and share our results with other universities.

We are currently preparing information for businesses and students to help explain GPA in more detail.

We hope the new approach will provide useful information for our graduates and for employers, locally, nationally and globally.

We have no plans to replace the traditional degree classification approach, but merely to complement it with the addition of the GPA.

Of course, retaining the British classification system means that students graduating from Brookes may continue to state that they received a Desmond or a Geoff.

However, more imaginative readers might wish to start thinking of famous people to rhyme with the new 0 to 4 Grade Point Average scores when they come into effect from September.