Grading systems: the Pass/Not Pass system

REPORTING student learning by using a grading system is not a holiday. As has been said many times over, evaluating can never be objective. Nevertheless, every teacher wants to be fair and objective. Shall we say then that we teachers TRY as much as possible to be “accurate” --- that is, the grade we give is an unbiased measure of the student’s performance within a designated timeline.

Grades are an exercise of professional judgment. Based on an HEI’s policy, they can be in percentage form (75%, 90%, etc.), letters (A, B+, etc), numbers (5, 4, etc.) or adjectives (Superior, Average, etc.) -- each form in the service of the other forms. Percentage grades could be from 50% to 100%. Hence a school may set a policy to fix the lowest possible but not necessarily the highest possible grade that can be given, such as 70% as the symbol for a failed subject and 75%, for minimum passing. Particularly for a Law School, this policy does away with the likelihood that students are graded 71, 72, 73 or 74. Statistics-wise, 73 or 74 could be raised to 75; this policy saves academic officials from having to do so along with possible legal problems.