Paper - Academic Registry and Council Secretariat - Queen Mary ...

Taught Programmes Board
TPB2012-020
Programme Organiser Professor David Adger, Head of School
1) Proposed Amendment(s)
Detail the proposed amendments to the programme and attach the updated Programme Specification. If new
modules are to be added to the programme(s) or if existing modules are to be removed this should be clearly
specified in the space below. Further information regarding the module(s) to be added / removed from the
programme(s) can be provided in the table below. Alternatively, this information can be presented in text form
in the space below, as long as all of the key information in the table is detailed.
To introduce a five year variant, allowing for preliminary year entry students to also undertake a year abroad.
Programme specifications already include the variations of undertaking a preliminary year and of undertaking a year abroad in
addition to the core first, second and final years. However, the programmes do not have a five year route set up on SITS, so at
present students can only take a maximum of four years (either Preliminary, 1, 2, Final or 1, 2, 3, Final).
X
Module Title
Year Abroad - Russian Non-Erasmus
Study Placement
Module
Code
RUS298
Credits
Level
Module
Selection
Status
Academic
Year of
Study
Add / Remove
Module from
Programme
120 5 Compulsory 3 Add Module
2) New Programme Title (if applicable)
Please note that changing the programme title will necessitate the recoding of the programme.
Titles are unchanged
3) Proposed Date of Amendment Introduction January 2013
4) Rationale
Detail the rationale for the proposed amendment(s).
This proposed amendment follows an amendment approved in 2011-12 to add an optional year abroad to RRGT German and
Russian (European Studies) in response to a student request to undertake a five year degree. The School would now like to make
this option available across the complete range of BA programmes involving Russian.
At the core of University Russian programmes nationally is the need to teach students the Russian language from scratch,
because so few have the opportunity to take a Russian ‘A’ level at UK schools or FE colleges. At Queen Mary, this ab initio
teaching is delivered through an intensive year spent solely learning Russian, and no other subject, after which students are at
the level of a strong candidate with a good pass at ‘A’ level, and begin their first year in Russian. If they are joint-honours
students, this is also when they begin their other subject.
However, this system means that the students will take four years to complete their degree, even if they don’t go abroad. In
recent years, in part because there is no 5-year Russian programme, those wishing to spend a year abroad have interrupted
study, which means the college and the department have no formal responsibility or commitment to them. By introducing 5-
year Russian programmes with immediate effect, open to those on existing programmes, it would become possible to offer
students a year abroad with recommended work placements or a range of courses recognised and verified by us, and thus
increasing the attractiveness of our year abroad.
5) Resource Implications of Proposed Amendment(s)
Are there any resource implications linked to the proposed amendment(s)?
Support for students on the year abroad is part of the role of the language studies co-ordinator in each language.