Fee-paying uni students bully academics for good marks

John in Alice says:

09:44am | 09/03/10

Sorry JJJ.  You seem to believe that simply paying for attending a class should guarantee that you pass it.  If that were true then all the students enrolled in sports should be guaranteed winning every event they participate in.  How would you feel of all of our doctors, dentists and other vital professionals got through their education simply by paying the fees?  What about the airline pilot flying you on holidays, or even the mechanic working on your brakes?
While there certainly are teachers/lecturers whose skills and judgement are questionable we must trust that the majority have the knowledge and integrity to perform their jobs in a suitable manner and without question.
It seems obvious that your parents failed to teach you that failure is an unfortunate but vital component of life.  In fact a teacher you complain about may have been just like you, expecting to pay the fees and automatically qualify for the job of teaching in your classroom.

JdR says:

10:39am | 09/03/10

Its strangely unclear clear to people how an education is different from a flat screen TV or a massage.

When buying an education, you’re paying for an opportunity, rather than a product or a service.

matt says:

11:06am | 10/03/10

I think I understand you’re point here.

If the gov (community) is so concerned about the quality of graduants from university, remove the need to pay and make it more exclusive. If you pay for something you expect to get something out of it.. not just you got 49% in the exam and need to pay $5,000 again next semester to do it all again.

Removing the need to pay by ‘customers’ removes the right they have for results.

Peter says:

08:25am | 09/03/10

I can’t believe this is happening in ANU and I was surprised to see the article began by telling the first example of such nasty thing in ANU. Let those low-quality international students go back to their countries and it’s time for ANU and other big Australian universities to reconsider the issues about money and their entry requirements. To some extent, universities have partial responsibility of these terrible things.

James1 says:

10:19am | 09/03/10

Having some experience teaching and marking at ANU, I can say that is only half the story Sam.  In most courses, feedback on essays and other assessment items - usually amounting to 50-70 percent of the overall course mark, has been received by the time the students fill out the evaluation forms.  That said, I have never experienced anything like what is described in the article.

Kim says:

12:15pm | 09/03/10

Jolanda, have you tried contacting your local member about this? Or even your Premier?  It’s amazing what they can and will do to help out the downtrodden - especially if there’s publicity in it for them.

Jolanda says:

01:20pm | 09/03/10

Yes Kim I have tried the Local opposition members and they said that as the Opposition they didn’t have the power or resources to help.  It seems like it must cost money to open your mouth.

One Local Labor Member said

1.  Nobody will believe you because everybody knows that mothers are biased.
2.  Don’t bother going to a Solicitor as they will just take your money.
3.  I used to be a criminal lawyer and it doesn’t matter what evidence you have - it wont be enough.

I did write to the Premier (more than one) but the process is that my letters get sent from the Premiers correspondent unit to the persons against whom allegations are made who just present that the matter has been dealt with and closed, this is believed and we are ignored. NO amount of evidence supporting the failure to investigate the complaint or the manipulation of state records is enough because they send it to the persons against whom we complain.  We have been placed on ‘a list’ by the person whom we have made allegations against that states that correspondence from us is not to be responded to.  The process is set up to cover up and protect the reputation of Government employees and staff.  Ordinary people have no rights or protection.

Until something is done about the complaint handling process bullying and manipulation will continue to thrive and those who speak out will continue to pay the price.

Educators have so much power as they can alter your marks and deny you education, opportunities and defame and discredit you.  They need to be supervised and there needs to be scrutiny.

Albie says:

08:36am | 09/03/10

Sadly the “real world” tends to reward conniving people regardless of their skills. I often think if I’d used some of my brain power to be a manipulative bitch like the girls in my classes I’d have the job of my dreams now.

Davido says:

01:42pm | 09/03/10

Unfortunately this ability to harass and connive your way to better marks often teaches people to go through their working life doing the same.

David B says:

08:29am | 11/03/10

No they don’t kick them out for plagiarism. While doing my Masters one of my lecturers complained that she had been instructed (by her superior) to ignore the plagiarised thesis and allow the student to resubmit - THREE TIMES. It was only the fourth attempt that the student finally submitted her own work. And this was at Masters level as well.

That was six years ago… god forbid what it’s like now.

PGSnob says:

02:48pm | 09/03/10

That’s what happens when you go to a second rate university.

B says:

04:58pm | 09/03/10

Second-rate is a kind assessment PG, it wasn’t university level stuff at all.

Al says:

09:54am | 09/03/10

I agree and would like to add that while many students don’t want to be challenged to learn many lecturers are afraid to be challenged.

For example I had a lecturer during my LLB who had a particular view about an action in equity with which I fundamentally disagreed. I outlined my argument in the exam and was given a fail mark (3/20 for that question). 18 months later the High Court handed down a decision using substantially the same reasoning as I had but the Law School refused to adjust my mark.

This academic dishonesty caused me to lose all faith in the system and do the minimum to pass.

Andrew says:

03:05am | 19/05/10

If the Australian School of Business at UNSW is the Southern Hemisphere’s best, I’m moving North.

As a 1st year Undergrad student I can tell you this:

It’s extremely obvious why the accounting lecturers and tutors aren’t employed as actual accountants - they struggle with English grammar and get confused over content in Accounting 1A.

Management is more like ‘the idiot’s guide to philosophy’ and lectures discussing the implications of how close you stand to somebody in a social situation and similar trivial information aren’t uncommon. Any staff member related to teaching management is taking the Uni and its students for a ride. This week in our tutorial we were asked to build towers out of straws.

The business law lecturer chose to skip white collar crime in favour of e-commerce. Which do you think a Commerce graduate is likely to be concerned with? The tutor for business law doesn’t even have a Law degree and enjoys making up new laws.

Microeconomics has been the only decent course with knowledgeable lecturers and tutors.

So far, the course seems to be aimed at international students and filling them in on what they missed at Australian high school. To think that I paid $4400 this semester along with $500 for textbooks…

James1 says:

10:30am | 09/03/10

Actually, the lecture is intended to be that way; that is, the lecturer standing up and talking.  The tutorials are for discussion, and it has been this way since the student radicals of the 1960s forced these changes.  It is the tutorials where students need to think about the course material, in the lecture they simply have it presented to them.

David says:

11:43am | 09/03/10

James, I accept that there is a distinction between lectures and tutorials. Nonetheless, some lecturers need to move past the idea that reading a textbook is a suitable lecture. I have just left a lecture where the lecturer engaged with students, drawing information out of them, expanding on it and making us think so we learn the material.

Contrast this to the lecture I had first thing this morning. A dull, monotonic voice, talking at students while they fall asleep. No exploration of why something is, no exploration of anything. Just talk. In these cases, the least the lecturer can do is provide some form of written material/presentation slides to help the students follow along and think while the lecturer lectures. Yes, tutorials help to explain the issues further but even these often descend into another mini-lecture because the tutors don’t know how to facilitate discussion and inquiry.

Woo says:

12:33pm | 09/03/10

Sorry David - the world owes you nothing. Students need to do more than just, ‘some work’  (oh the poor darlings!) YOU have to put in the effort with what there is in life (not just uni), YOU have to learn to think, YOU have to make your subject interesting to YOU all by YOURSELF. This is called living your life, taking responsibility and getting on with it.
Just because your generation expects everything to be delivered by electronic means does not mean that it will magically happen. LEARN to listen (even if it is boring - so is much of life, others just learn to get over it)
In short stop blaming others, pick yourself up and make it HAPPEN!
All this reminds me of the Roman arena - thumbs up if you have entertained me, down if I’m bored - and with that judgment so ends a career. Think wisely…
I wish you all the best.

Bruce says:

01:18pm | 09/03/10

“David” agree with you. “Woo” agree partially, however, it does sound to me that you are trying to get sub-standard lecturers off the hook. The question remains, ‘what are we paying for”? If we are to accept sub-standard lectures / tutorials, the university may just as well give us the notes the lecturer is using, dispense with the lecturer, and reduce the fees. I do often wonder if the modern lecturer is becoming redunant and couls be replaced with a “talking head”.

Woo says:

02:56pm | 09/03/10

Bruce, I agree - sub-standard lecturers should not be let off the hook for doing a sloppy job.
The core of the issue is tied up in your statement, ‘what are we paying for”? It is this aspect of co modification of all things, including education that has reduced everything to a transaction.
Education is not just ‘data’ or even’ information’ that can be spat back in an exam. Education (spoiler alert - old fashioned idea coming up) revolves around a funny notion called ‘knowledge’ - not necessarily tied to a dollar transaction. The $ leads to a ‘what’s in it form me?’ reality.
Yes, we could reduce the lecturer to a ‘talking head’ as you put it but then we get down to the situation that Omegaman speaks of below whereby the paper and by inference, the degree is worthless.

I don’t have an answer completely but I do know that putting so much power in the hands of those with the money to pay (students marking lecturers) leads to reduced quality of education. Most (not all) students do not have the life skills, experience and knowledge of the field they are studying to pass fair judgment - through no real fault of their own all most can do is pass biased opinion geared around their own selfish needs, persoanl likes and dislikes (paper degree or entry visa - whatever). Universities themselves at one time did have this capacity but sadly no longer in most cases.

What is needed is an independent arbitrator with no axe to grind to judge both the student and the lecturer but to do this without the money equation being involved these days is impossible…

Laura says:

03:01pm | 09/03/10

@Woo: As new technology becomes available, the way we can receive information changes (and in fact I just studied this topic as part of my Communications Degree). You suggest that sometimes things are boring, and we should just get over it. That we shouldn’t expect things to be available in an electronic media. Well, why shouldn’t we? Electronic communication is becoming the norm across all industries. These communication tools are created to enhance the message being sent, in this case, the lecture to students. I don’t think it’s inappropriate for students to expect their teachers to engage with technology to help them learn. I say give them every bit of help possible!

Being a student through correspondence study at the moment, as well as working in a university, I can tell you that there are a lot of teachers out there who aren’t utilising these technologies simply because they don’t feel like it. It’s too “hard”. Part of my job is trying to encourage staff to attend professional development sessions to extend their skills using electronic communication tools. Universities want their staff to use these to engage students, because they want the students to learn in the best way possible.

The attitude of “it’s boring, just deal with it” is ridiculous. One of my all time favourite subjects so far has been economics, and I absolutely hate maths. But the teacher is engaging, and uses all the technologies available to him to teach (and through the internet, no less!).

Frankly, if I’m paying $25-30k (the cost of an average degree) to learn, I’d like it to be interesting too! So yes, I do expect to get information through electronic means, and I expect my teachers to use every communication tool available to them to help me learn.

For the record, I’ve never done badly in my course because I’ve had a bad teacher. If a teacher gives me a textbook and then ignores me for a few months, I “get over it” and do the work. But I get a hell of a lot more satisfaction and learn a whole lot more when the teacher makes the information engaging.

And really, if all the teacher is going to do is stand in front of a class reading notes, we might as well read it ourselves! Why else are we paying lecturers, if not to help us actively engage with the content?

Woo says:

04:05pm | 09/03/10

Laura
You’re still missing the point - it is NOT the delivery method that makes education. Sorry if this upsets your embedded reality, please stop blaming outside influences - you have said yourself that you ‘did the work’ - fantastic, goes to show what can be done.
The world is NOT perfect, stop expecting it and deal with what is - this is called character, endurance and maturity.
Electronic delivery is absolutely fantastic but NOT absolutely necessary - and it is not just INFORMATION you are getting, you are confusing the medium with the message ( Marshall McLuhan). Many people are just used to getting it with almost everything today and feel cheated when it doesn’t appear. Your argument makes a $25,000 tail wagging the dog - interesting is all subjective as we ourselves make things interesting, not someone else. Be wary of too much expectation, it will always lead to disappointment.
For the record: I have not denounced electronic delivery, I have observed a huge number of lecturers just hanging on when they should just leave and the reason you are paying lecturers (good or bad ones) is to make you THINK - and yes it appears you are, welcome to education.

TC says:

06:23pm | 09/03/10

One of the biggest problems is students assuming they already know the content and making judgements about the course and the teacher they are ill equipped to make. An attitude like this renders you unteachable no matter what the teacher’s style.

Sure some people engage more easily than others but teachers do not engage students at university level. Students need to engage with the subject matter themselves and then engage with the teacher.

It is impossible for a teacher / lecturer to teach someone who is not there to learn.

There is absolutley nothing that suggests a course should cater to “reasonable intellect”. University should be going well beyond “reasonable intellect”.

The problem is that “reasonable intellect” doesnt understand when it is not “superior intellect” and that a course designed for higher intellect excludes them from understanding.

SarahJaneJones says:

09:57am | 11/03/10

Having tings electronically isn’t just something that our generation demands because we like electronic things. It helps us to get “knowledge” It allows us to go over any concepts we don’t understand, it allows us to recap on what we have done in the course and it allows us to make better lecture notes. I listen to all my lectures on the podcast and type up far better notes because I can pause it and go back over something if I miss it the first time. It also allows us to miss a class which is often done for slack reasons, but can also be for legitimate ones like illness. This is something that lecturers should all be using. If they aren’t using it, then they are a substandard lecturer who isn’t doing everything within their power to help their students gain “knowledge”.

Further, students are expected to do work to understand the course. But I just don’t think it is acceptable for us to have to do that all on our own. Allow me to elaborate before crying that I’m lazy ect.

A good lecturer that I had had detailed lecture slides which he made available before the lecture for you to look over. He recorded his lectures. He put the textbook chapter readings up online so we knew what chapters were relevant. He also had extra readings we could do if we were interested. He provided model answers to the textbook questions, as well as model answers to the tutorial questions after the tutorial. He also had online quizzes that didn’t count for anything but that you could do to see how you were going. He provided past exams with model answers so we knew the format of the exam. He was very available for consultations if you still needed help. The student still has to do the practice questions. We still have to listen to the lecture, attend the tutorials, read the textbook and understand the course.

Compare that to a bad lecturer. His lecture slides were just choice extracts from the textbook (which he didn’t write) and the lecture examples were just taken from the textbook. He provided nothing else. So if you didn’t understand something, you would go to the textbook and find the exact same example and exact same wording so it was essentially useless. I ended up on wikipedia trying to understand the course. I am not paying you thousands of dollars to copy a textbook onto powerpoint. That is not acceptable.

rob says:

11:30am | 09/03/10

totally agreed

incensed says:

08:33pm | 09/03/10

I agree, when I did my Masters,  there were many international students, in one subject in particular the Lecturer used my assignments as an example to other students as mine were the only ones completed to an acceptable standard. Additionally when monitioring a web forum some overseas students were plagarising from the textbook and when I pointed this out to the lecturer, he said not to worry too much about it! I couldn’t believe it.

?? says:

01:58pm | 10/03/10

i agree, too

Tom says:

02:12pm | 09/03/10

The economics degree I did was a joke - and I won’t name the university, but it was built from sandstone. There was rarely any assessment other than a midterm and final exam, hence I didn’t even bother turning up to class most of the time. There was no point - you could just cram in the basics of the course in the week before the exam. The course outline claimed that 9 hours of work a week was needed to pass the course. I probably averaged 2, if that. Regardless, I still graduated with a high credit average. If you can do as little work as I did and still get a reasonable result, I would hate to see the students just scraping passes.

omegaman says:

02:24pm | 09/03/10

Waza, given the nature of what working economists do then you have made an incredibly brave move holding yourself out as capable of assessing people who have economics degrees, moreso if you have been a lecturer yourself. You should be well aware that if you get 10 economists in a room you get 10 opinions. Perhaps your own superiority complex gets in the way of your ability to accept that an aspiring economist might dare to question your views?

Its not enough to say you lectured but not say what degrees you have, and its a shame you value your own skills so highly and your university experience so poorly. Why did you bother finishing your degree? Or didn’t you finish it? Either way, you are looking pretty shabby.

Not having a degree tells a lot of people about your stickability. The way you have expressed your opinions today is telling the world more about you than your words.

Sam says:

03:10pm | 09/03/10

@omegaman, why is it so hard for you to believe that a university graduate can still have no clue when it comes to actually doing something in the real world? I got a “graduate intake” job more than a whole year before I would have actually graduated, so obviously my Fortune500 employer at the time didn’t believe in your “lack of stickability” theory, even though you are actually right. I won’t stick with any sub-standard situation just for the sake of “sticking it out”. I left uni when I got the job that uni was supposed to pave the way for, and I left that job when it failed to do it for me too.

I can do it, but I don’t have to put up with nonsense to prove it. It’s different for different fields, but in my field (IT) a uni degree is worthless in my books.

Joe says:

03:08pm | 09/03/10

Totally agree and found exactly the same thing when i taught and has only gotten worse over time.  The universities have become addicted to foreign students and the inflated fees they pay, in comparison to local students and this is not going to change until that situation is resolved.

Another Lecturer says:

12:33pm | 09/03/10

How exactly do you expect universities to run as educational institutions when they can’t fund adequate lecturer/tutor numbers without significant income from full-fee paying students?  We’re forced out of necessity to run as a business because we don’t have enough government funding to run solely as an educational institution.

The government slashed university funding significantly.  You can’t fund appropriate levels of lecturer/tutor availability without money!  And it’s getting worse, not better.

Realise that most lecturers aren’t even funded by the university.  Many of us are funded by external “industry” funding, and technically are under no obligation to teach.  The universities take advantage of this.  They’re getting free teaching from people they’re not even paying.  Please, before heaping it on the lecturers, understand the state of the funding model and the way many lecturers and tutors are funded.

Lou says:

03:47pm | 09/03/10

Having just completed my undergrad degree, I have bee taught i this way. There is always a sigificant chunk of assessment that is only covered by being in class. Typically this was a question in the final exam (worth about 30% of the exam) related explicitly to what was said in class, not the readings or lecture slides. Of course one can share this information, but it resulted in manny people coming to the lectures, as they all learnt after first year.

I was well challeged throughout my degree, and conntiue to be as I embark on my honours year. I really appreciate the manner in which I was taught and it has served me very well in my career outside of university.

B says:

05:08pm | 09/03/10

Joe - I’ll be gentle - it’s not ‘could of’ (ever) - the verb is ‘have’ as in ‘could have’ managed.

Joe says:

10:07pm | 09/03/10

@B Correct, but that is what happens when writing a comment during your lunch break, whilst trying to do a dozen other things at the same time.

omegaman says:

01:48pm | 09/03/10

I was a trainer for 18 months and I automatically passed all the non-english speakers because it was easier than pretending we had a standard to maintain.
I only made the native english speakers do the work. This was with the full support of management and my actions were never questioned.
Now I am back in industry I place no value in any qualification held by someone who is not a native english speaker. In interviews we just ignore the paper and ask prospective candidates what they did on the weekend, which in itself is revealing.
Don’t worry Bob, you will get a job anyway and at least your degree will be respected and not questioned.

bbkay says:

02:34pm | 09/03/10

Mind you i found wikipedia pretty helpful with those rather long lists of sources. beats digging through journal databases anyday.

Karl says:

09:04pm | 09/03/10

It is a segue.  The two wheeler borrowed the word and re-jigged it.  Every time I see anything on education on this site I cringe, as I know the comments are going to be filled with some of the most ridiculous spelling mistakes that can be made.

bec says:

06:59am | 10/03/10

You’re pretty good with speaking fluent cliche, though. I bet someone would hire you to lecture in that.

Michelle says:

12:25pm | 10/03/10

Hey gimme a break, I think one spelling mistake per paragraph is pretty good for someone who graduated in IT.

Louisa says:

08:48pm | 09/03/10

Lauren

Seperate   =  SEPARATE

These Days says:

12:00pm | 26/08/10

My experience as a tutor was similar.  Few students received As, but no one who submitted something that looked vaguely like work failed.  It was even worse in grad school.