The number of university students demanding extra time in exams due to mental health problems has surged in recent years, new figures showed.
Growing rates of anxiety, stress, and other psychiatric issues on campus mean more students are granted extra time in exams, or second attempts to submit essays, telegraph.co.uk wrote.
Student groups insist that the figures point to a growing mental health crisis on campus, although one academic warned over the weekend that the practice is becoming too widespread, and risks rendering the exam system ‘a joke’.
At Cambridge University 218 students were granted extra time last year — a three-fold increase from five years ago.
At Imperial College London special arrangements were granted to 111 students who complained of mental health problems last year, up from just 11 in 2011-12.
One in four British undergraduates reports some form of mental illness, a survey found last year, with depression and anxiety ranking as the common issues.
The growing student demand for extra time mirrors the situation in British schools. Almost 20 percent of private school pupils sitting A-Level and GCSE exams were granted extra time last year — some 27,000 pupils. The figure was 11 percent for pupils in state schools.
The new figures, obtained by The Sunday Times through Freedom of Information requests, also showed that Edinburgh University allowed 16 students to avoid having to give oral presentations last year.
One student at Newcastle University was allowed to re-sit an exam due to a gambling addiction.
Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at Kent University, warned over the weekend that the growing demand for extra time is becoming a ‘joke’ and urged universities to clamp down.
He said: “A few decades ago it was only granted in very rare circumstances but it has now become like a joke. It means there are different rules for different people and that some people who work hard and just get on with it are effectively penalized.”
Furedi warned that many universities require only a doctor’s note, which can be obtained easily.
“There are genuine cases but you have examples like ‘Mary broke up with her fiancé and he shouted at her about it and now she’s traumatized and can’t concentrate on her exams,” Furedi said.
Student Minds, a mental health charity, said that special adjustments are legitimate, and it was very unlikely that students are ‘making it up to get out of doing the work’.