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University of Copenhagen
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We will cut where it hurts the least

Response — Dean Ulf Hedetoft defends the decision to halve the time censors have to assess master’s theses at the Faculty of Humanities.

In recent days, several posts on this site have taken issue with the planned reduction of time for assessing humanities theses from 10 to five hours.

It is a required task for the faculty to find savings and increased revenues of up to DKK 160 million towards 2020. This is on the national budget.

When we have to make cuts, they should, of course, take place where they do the least harm to teaching and research. A survey of our finances last year showed that up to one third of the money we receive from government for education is being used for exams, assessment and censoring. We would rather use the money on teaching and guidance.

We have therefore also planned to reduce the standard assessment times for appointed censors on the theses. This is regrettable, but defensible. We are now on par with the other faculties at the University of Copenhagen – such as Law, Science and Health – and with other universities such as DTU, CBS and RUC. Theses have gotten shorter than in the old days, and for several years now a subsequent thesis statement has not had to be written.

When we make the cuts here, we have been able to maintain the time for guidance for the master’s theses. This guarantees the preservation of quality in the theses a lot better than a liberal standard for their assessment.

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