The same deadline
Text: an original contemporary school-magazine-commentary-style practice extract.
Our history project had to be submitted by four o’clock on Friday. The deadline appeared on every instruction sheet, and everyone had been given three weeks. No pupil had been quietly given extra time as a favour. On paper, the arrangement looked perfectly equal.
In the final week, however, the school computer system stopped working for two afternoons. Some pupils continued at home on their own computers. Others depended on the machines in the school library and lost the only time they had available. When one of these pupils requested an extra day, she was not asking for easier marking or less work. She was asking for the hours that other pupils had not lost. The same deadline was measuring access to equipment as well as effort.
The teacher had sensible reasons for wanting the projects together. A common deadline made the work easier to organise and allowed the whole class to receive feedback at the same time. Yet consistency is not the whole of fairness. The deadline could have remained in place for most pupils while those affected by the breakdown attended a catch-up session or received a short extension. Sometimes treating people fairly means noticing that one rule has not affected everyone in the same way.
Evaluate the success of the writer’s argument that equal treatment can sometimes create unequal effects.
In your answer, you could consider:
Use detailed references to the extract to support your views.