The Student Response

The first feature of the student reaction to ITA at Victoria is that among most students there has not (yet) been a reactionary demand to return to the "status quo ante-" ITA of terms and finals. ITA is seen as still good in principle but that problems have arisen from its faulty implementation. As the Director of Student Welfare Services concluded "The views I have expressed should not be taken to imply that the Welfare staff or large numbers of students are opposed to the principle of ITA....there is a considerable measure of support for the well thought out use of ITA". Prof J.C. Clift of the VUW Teaching and Research Centre and the Studass personnel involved are equally adamant that ITA still stands in principle but that its implementation as revealed by surveys has revealed practical problems.

This raises the question of how have students responded to what would seem to have been a largely student-sponsored scheme "backfiring" on the students? If we accept that ITA at VUW has contributed towards an increase in workloads and/or pressure then we clearly have a vicious circle whereby student apathy is reinforced by overworking and a sense of overwhelming futility which makes student action on assessment difficult to organise and sustain. On the other hand, on occasion, students can be pushed to breaking point on workloads as was the case in 1973 in August when a lively forum on "why I am pissed off with varsity" singled out workloads and assessment as the causes and petitioned the Prof. Board for an investigation which has contributed to the various faculty reports over the last few years.