Green flag vs archaic assignment submission policies

cantalach

My eldest child started in UCC this term and is loving it, but there is one thing neither of us can quite understand. The college authorities promote their green flag status whilst permitting faculties and/or departments to operate archaic assignment submission requirements that are completely contrary to environmental principles.

Every assignment must be submitted electronically and I would have thought that would be the end of the story for a green flag organisation. Fool me. Students must also submit a paper copy of every assignment. Moreover, the document must be printed single-sided in double-spaced 12pt font, i.e. a format requirement that uses as much paper as possible. Worse still, at least one department requires two physical copies of every submission!! When you multiply the number of students by the number of assignments per annum, this is adding up to a colossal amount of wasted paper.

Even when I started college 30 years ago, we cringed at the amount of paper we were consuming. It really is beyond belief that nothing has changed since. Why does the Student Union tolerate this? Why do the central government departments of Education and Environment tolerate this?