A current student at St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College (SVGCC) has gone public with a widespread, distressing crisis that is upending the academic trajectories and mental well-being of hundreds of students, particularly those in their final graduating semester. The open letter, published through iWitness News, outlines systemic issues with the college’s assessment practices that have left dozens of hardworking students at risk of delayed graduation and severe psychological distress.
While SVGCC’s official institutional policy sets a 40% score as the passing threshold for all courses, the student alleges that inconsistent, overly rigid grading practices by a subset of lecturers have made meeting this bar far more difficult than policy suggests. According to the account, many lecturers heavily deduct marks from any response that does not exactly match their personal expected answer—even when the student clearly demonstrates a solid grasp of the core concept. This one-size-fits-all approach ignores the reality that students process, understand and articulate academic ideas in diverse ways, the letter argues, and assessments should not require rote replication of a lecturer’s individual interpretation to earn full credit.
One of the most pressing grievances centers on students failing courses by just 3 to 4 marks, outcomes that many affected students view as fundamentally unfair and unjustified. For graduating students, the stakes of these close failures are disproportionately high: SVGCC only offers two opportunities to take supplemental make-up exams, and students must already earn a minimum overall course score of 35% to qualify for a re-assessment. As a result, students who have put in two years of steady effort toward their degrees can be blocked from graduating on time simply because they fell a handful of points short of passing in one or two courses.
Beyond disrupted academic plans, the situation has sparked a severe mental health crisis among affected students. Many report experiencing crippling anxiety, clinical depression, and overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, as the prospect of repeating an entire academic year looms large. Some students have described being pushed to breaking point by constant pressure and disappointment, while others have become so disheartened that they are stepping back from planned future career and educational opportunities—even when they have put in consistent work to reach their goals.
Compounding the academic stress is a pattern of disrespectful and harmful treatment from some lecturers, the letter claims. Multiple students have reported being publicly labeled with derogatory terms including “dunce” and “illiterate,” and being told they are wasting their families’ money on tuition. Such demeaning comments, the student emphasizes, do lasting damage to young people’s confidence and mental health, and run counter to the core mission of higher education: institutions are meant to uplift and guide students, not erode their sense of self-worth.
To illustrate the unfairness of current grading practices, the letter offers a common example: a student may earn a 35% through in-semester coursework, needing only a small number of additional points on their final exam or essay to pass the full course. In multiple reported cases, though, essays are graded so harshly that students receive zero marks solely because their response did not include the exact content the lecturer demanded—even when the student clearly demonstrated understanding of the core topic. The student argues that modern education should prioritize conceptual understanding and critical thinking, not the verbatim repetition of pre-written talking points.
In closing, the student and their affected peers have issued a formal, respectful request for the Ministry of Education to launch a full investigation into the reported concerns and implement targeted reforms to better support SVGCC students. Key demands include: a comprehensive institutional review of current grading and marking practices at the college; measures to enforce greater fairness and consistency across all lecturer assessment methods; an expansion of the number of available supplemental exam opportunities to give marginal students a second chance; targeted support to address the heavy toll of unregulated academic pressure on student mental health; new guidelines requiring respectful, supportive treatment of all students by faculty; and the creation of alternative pathways to allow on-time graduation for students who fall just short of passing marks.
“Students attend college because they want to improve their lives, contribute positively to society, and build a better future for themselves and their country,” the letter reads. “The institution that is meant to help students succeed should not become a barrier that causes emotional distress and hopelessness.”
The student closed by expressing sincere hope that the Ministry of Education will prioritize the issue and work to implement solutions that protect SVGCC students’ academic progress, mental well-being, and access to future opportunity. iWitness News notes that the opinions expressed are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the outlet’s editorial stance. The publication accepts open opinion submissions via email for publication consideration.