A red level snow risk was issued by the Met Office, postponing all exams due to take place on Friday until the following Monday.
UPDATE: The adverse weather continues to be a problem outside Swansea but the University and Students’ Union services are open for business.
All exams will take place in the same venue and at the same time, just the date has changed.
The Students’ Union has issued a blog post in which it explains the University decided after seeing the Met office report to suspend examinations as students and key members of staff might not be able to make it to campus.
Saturday exams will go ahead as timetabled.
Bus services in and around Swansea have been suspended (notably the 82A) and most trains have been cancelled past Cardiff. Current weather warnings advise against all but essential travel.
No advice was given to students who might have further special circumstances other than to contact their college, but with departments possibly closed until Monday, some students could fall through the cracks.
One student who didn’t want to be named said: “I have a medical procedure on Monday which I timed to fall outside exams and will now have to postpone because of this and the new special circ[umstances] policy. Why have the University not issued any advice how they will help me at all?!”
Some students who had booked holidays abroad during next week’s “My Employability Week” were angry they had to reschedule flights. Chloe Dymond, posting on the University’s Facebook page said: “We’ve booked flights for Monday and now we have to pay an extra £140 to changed them. Thanks.”
The University remains open on Friday, alongside services such as CostCutter supermarket and the coffee shops.
A University spokesperson said: “In deciding to postpone the examinations we took account of the best available weather forecast at the time and consideration of the need to give students certainty as to what would happen in the event of the predicted bad weather arriving in Wales. The decision was not taken lightly and was made on the basis of the information available to us at the time and in the interests of all concerned in a timely manner. Also the exam rescheduling decision was taken in full consultation with the Students’ Union. We had to bear in mind that some students have to travel great distances to reach the campus and some people had travelled home to revise and that return travel would be disrupted. We are mindful that rescheduling of some exams will have caused disruption to people’s plans but it was important that all students received the same examination.
We also had to take into account that the University has a diverse student population with some people having commitments ie looking after children (many schools were closed) and some caring for the elderly or the ill (many A&E appointments were cancelled and social care disrupted). Other Universities (Swansea Met and Aberystwyth) closed completely while we remained open with our student support services, Academic registry, Library, catering etc continuing to provide a service.
The Employability Week has a full schedule and we wanted everyone to avail themselves of the opportunities on offer. We are disappointed to learn that some opted out of this facility but are mindful that some student’s have to attend other events during this week. Where student’s can’t manage to get to their exams we will look very positively at any requests to sit them at another time where there have been incidents which have occurred which were beyond their control and they have not been able to rearrange their plans.”
Zahid Raja, Education Officer said: “I’m currently working with the academic registry to make sure we get the best deal for students who had plans to go away next week.
“I cannot make guarantees, but be assured that this is currently my top priority. I am incredibly pleased to see that the library will be open 24 hours on the Sunday – I would like to thank staff members in the library for their commitment to students in what are a set of incredibly unpredictable circumstances.”
