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Fee-paying uni students bully academics for good marks

Tracey Spicer

by Tracey Spicer

09 Mar 05:50am

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Filed under: Academics, Bullying, Education, Universities

77 comments

There’s a hidden epidemic of bullying in Australia – and it’s not in the schoolyard. The corporatisation of universities has led to an increase in students bullying their lecturers for better marks.

Illustration: John Tiedemann

“It’s often the international students, whose families have sacrificed so much to send them to university,” says one lecturer in the arts and social sciences faculty at the ANU.

Dr. Janet Shepherd* admits bumping up one student’s Credit to a Distinction, because he stalked and harassed her daily via social media.

“He threatened to get all his friends to return negative questionnaires about me and, frankly, I couldn’t afford to lose my job.”

The problem stems from student evaluation forms, which are used to assess the assessors. A lecturer who doesn’t mark highly enough could get negative feedback, jeopardising their chances of promotion.

“If you’re too demanding, you get bad student evaluations,” says one lecturer in the science faculty at the University of Queensland.

And it’s not just international students. With HECs debts in the tens of thousands, the relationship between teacher and pupil has become one of service provider and customer.

There are now deep concerns about low-quality candidates qualifying for high degrees.

“Many academics are concerned that students no longer wish to be challenged to learn,” according to Professor Dianna Kenny from the University of Sydney.

It’s a thinly veiled swipe at Gen Ys, who expect to be spoon-fed podcasts of each subject.

“Most don’t even know how to take notes during a lecture,” laments Dr. Shepherd. “Then they write essays citing Wikipedia in the footnotes.”

Underpinning this discontent are the federal government’s performance targets, which must be met to qualify for $135 million a year from 2012.

The windfall was welcomed when it was announced two years ago, described as an “exceptional budget, above expectations”.

“For university staff, they would welcome and be astounded by the commitment to a new indexation formula,” gushed Carolyn Allport from the National Tertiary Education Union.

Then just before Christmas last year, the government released its discussion paper on performance funding. This time, the response was muted.

“Any money is good money, or we’ll make it feel good somehow,” writes the Chair of Higher Education Research at Deakin University, Marcia Devlin, “but the proposal to use the self report Course Experience Questionnaire scale for generic skills as a measure of outcomes is very disappointing.”

The pay-for-performance model is also pressuring academics to “publish or perish”, spending more time in their writer’s garret than in front of the class. One PhD confides that she’s “appalled” by the “shoddy scholarship” in books and research papers produced by colleagues in recent years.

All this might sound like the usual whinge by academics about lazy students and not enough research funding.

After all, in the big wide world outside those hallowed halls, workers have to prove their worth.

But we risk tarnishing our reputation overseas by producing graduates, ill equipped to deal with the intellectual demands of the modern workforce.

And why should academics have to accept ritualised bullying as simply part of the job?

*Name changed

Most commented

427Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself
375There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin
313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
304Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer
262Who murdered the Arts degree?
246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...
231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...
231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.

77 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Tammy says:

      08:03pm | 14/05/12

      I am currently studying the University of Queensland and have failed several placements. Looking back at the system, some clinical educators just fail students because they themselves do not know how to be better than students (i.e. do not want other work colleagues to know that they are idiots). We students (including international, domestic, pass, fail students) know who are good teachers and who are idiots. We students also know that you clinical educators and also the university just like to fail students for money.

      Reply

    • Toothfairy says:

      03:19pm | 22/05/10

      Rod Rye you are so right! This is happening right now at the University fo Sydney Faculty of Dentistry - where many students have been failed by lecturers who just decide they don’t like students.
      I’ve come across so many lecturers with dysfunctional personalities. They may know their subject but they have no people skills and often feel threatened by bright students who challenge them.

      Reply

    • Happy in Alice says:

      08:16pm | 10/03/10

      Instead of making students go to class, why don’t they just pay their exorbitant money and be given the piece of paper? It amounts to the same thing if they don’t make the grade but get passed anyway.

      Reply

    • Rod Rye says:

      03:45pm | 10/03/10

      This is really simple to solve. Make sure the lecturers that are doing the teaching, and being evaluated, are not the ones who get to decide the marks. If the work is marked by someone independent, no threats will be successful.

      No good can come from the person doing the marking knowing the person being marked, I’ve seen in many cases the reverse, where poor marks are given out because the marker does not like the student.

      Reply

    • thrill says:

      02:06pm | 10/03/10

      i recently returned from studying overseas. i cant believe how behind i was in everything. our university system is an absolute joke

      Reply

    • Davido says:

      02:54am | 10/03/10

      I can share one experience as an ANU undergrad tutor: I found the students to be attentive and somewhat interested. Several of the international students approached me to question the grades they received and I was happy to show them how to get a better result. I thought they took it pretty well.

      The standard required of the students was however very low. While getting a high mark was relatively rare, passing was almost guaranteed. Being a part time tutor, I really was surprised. The quality of work was at the level of a work-experience kid. It is not that the students could not have done quality work, it was just that they didnt have to put in much effort to get a good mark. So of course they didnt.

      In my first year of undergrad economics the stats lecturer failed 87% of the class. I am not sure if that says more about the students, the lecturer or the standard. I am however pretty sure that it wouldnt happen these days.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • sweetclassics says:

      08:32pm | 09/03/10

      I think the whole bullying thing is a rather isolated case to write an article about and alleging thats the typical environment for uni lecturers teaching international students. There are more serious problems in the tertiery system that needs to be looked at. When you charge anyone $50-80k for anything, your bound to provide only the best service to match the pricetag. Saying to pay all that money just for an opportunity is utter BS, cause there’s no way a 10 year old recycled lecturer is worth that much money. Heck, nowadays you could even get all these materials free, online. 

      So yeah, the unis want to continue making shitloads of money, but not wanting to improve on the service and capabilities of the lecturers, the whole system would be bound to collapse over time.

      Reply

    • Lauren says:

      08:19pm | 09/03/10

      I’m 23, been at university for 4 years, have a completed Bachelor of Arts degree at La Trobe and just started a seperate Bachelor degree at RMIT this year.

      And now I feel very stupid.

      I have never, ever noticed this, or known for this to happen. Yeah, you get the occasional spoilt Gen-Y who can’t take notes or reference properly, but they’re usually long gone before second year subjects begin.

      No one is dumb enough to use wikipedia though - it is drilled into you constantly that you fail if you do so.

      Reply

    • Louisa says:

      08:48pm | 09/03/10

      Lauren

      Seperate   =  SEPARATE

    • Michelle says:

      06:47pm | 09/03/10

      “And it’s not just international students”. This politically-correct segway from bullying international students to lazy domestic students falsely equated the two. I think that’s the first time I’ve consciously been offended by a segway. Is it written somewhere in the politcally-correct guide to journalism that, when criticising foreigners, you also need to criticise equally the locals? Sadly, it appears so. How then are foreign students supposed to get a clear message that they need to lift their game, as opposed to being just one problem in the general mire of decay? Hey, don’t ask me, I don’t talk PC.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • formersnag, no laberal stooge. says:

      02:42pm | 09/03/10

      This problem may have been, added to, or worsened, by the “Howard” conservatives, but it was started, by the red/green/labour coalition, during the Hawke/Keating years.

      With their anti, industry policies, they have to try and create, new, industries, even if they are a “waste of space”.

      Don’t blame me, i have not voted for a major party in decades. My preferences used to swing, but since the 90’s it has become obvious that the red/green/labour coalition is rotten to the core, beyond any hope of redemption. Don’t believe me try this.

      http://www.heineraffair.info/

      if you are a disgruntled ALP voter and can’t bring yourself to vote for the conservatives, forget the red/communist/greens, try these guys.

      http://www.australiafirstparty.com.au/cms/

      Reply

    • Tom says:

      02:24pm | 09/03/10

      “It’s a thinly veiled swipe at Gen Ys, who expect to be spoon-fed podcasts of each subject.

      “Most don’t even know how to take notes during a lecture,” laments Dr. Shepherd. “Then they write essays citing Wikipedia in the footnotes.”

      This is a bit much - most Gen Y students that I know (including myself) rarely or never use the podcasted lectures where they are provided (and I don’t think many subjects are). In addition, most tutors and lecturers make it pretty clear that if you cite wikipedia you will get failed - and deservedly so.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • Bob says:

      01:08pm | 09/03/10

      As someone who is two subjects away from graduating, I’m fully against anything that cheapens my degree. However, getting rid of surveys is not an option I could support. (This is largely because last semester, two out of my four lecturers spoke English with such a thick accent I could barely understand a word they said. To get a native English speaking lecturer with a clear, easily-understandable accent is getting rare in I.T. I have no idea of how the ESL students cope)

      Reply

    • 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.

    • Joe says:

      12:58pm | 09/03/10

      As a former teacher of overseas students for 6 years in undergrad and postgrad IT studies at a private college that taught degrees from an Australian uni, i completely agree Tracey’s article.

      During that time i saw the courses from the university dumbed down, to the point where some units simply became English tests, with students having to write a 1000 word essay or give a powerpoint presentations on their background, hobbies and interests, which i would think any Australian student could of managed in around half an hour of work and without any effort whatsoever.  While certainly had no real academic merit.  Yet the students still struggled and so the standard continued to be lowered until students were passing.  They were allowed to take textbooks and notes into exams and every effort was made to help them pass.  This happened across the board in numerous subjects i taught and even saw undergrad and postgrad students in the same class, being taught the same material, usually only with a small variation in assignments they were given, if any at all.

      Many struggled with English and were obviously incapable of reading the instructions to assignments or the question in exams, for instance leaving out large sections of assignments or misreading the question, such as in one year, when almost an entire unit answered an exam question regarding audio, as if we had asked about still images and jpegs.  Which is akin to asking what colour is the sky and being told, the grass is green.

      Attempting to read what they had written, was similar to reading that of perhaps a dyslexic, where words were incorrectly substituted into text copied from the web, to avoid accusations of plagiarism, often with the incorrect or opposite meaning of what should of been written.  Yet was not considered plagiarism by the university.  Sometimes they would not even attempt to use a whole word and would use ‘textspeak’, such as ‘R’ instead of are, or ‘U’ instead of you.

      They even had this peculiar trait, I found in around 90 percent of the thousands of students i taught, of being unable to punctuate a sentence, with no capital at the start of sentence and placing the full stop at the start of the next sentence after two spaces, rather than at the end.  This i believe was the result of many attending the same English school, despite the fact spell checking their work would constantly attempt to correct them. 

      Then the students were incapable of completing work on time or regularly, often handing in assignments days late or each week in class would be completing the previous weeks work, instead of what was allocated for that lesson.  When i tried repeatedly to explain this to them the importance of deadlines, the students had no understanding of class work or being given assignments to finish during the semester, as in India, where 95 percent of them were from, they were taught in classes numbering in the thousands, where assessments were made using 200 prepared questions and answers, given to the students at the start of the semester and asked in a multiple-choice exam at the end, as it was impossible for the single lecturer to mark thousands of papers any other way.

      Yet I was told by senior staff to ignore plagiarism and constantly reminded we are offering a service to the students which they had paid for and expected to get good results for the fees they had paid.  I even had senior staff alter my marks or ignore plagiarism complaints, then turn around and blame me if it was later picked up in reviews of the student’s work.  All of this was because the college relied on the student fees to survive, as the did university, which only 10 years previously had catered purely for students from rural Australia, but which had now 70 percent foreign students enrolled in their courses, even opening a campus in Qatar.

      However, perhaps the most damning revelation would come, when you asked the students why they were here, if you ask who is here for an education, maybe one or two would put there hand up.  Yet if you asked who is here for a degree and points for permanent residency, the entire class would unashamedly answer yes.  Really it was linking the permanent residency visa to postgraduate study, which saw the foreign students enroll in our universities and colleges, as a back-door immigration scheme, when really they had no interest in pursuing an education.  The universities and colleges were complicit in allowing this to occur and advertised or modified their courses to ensure they met the immigration requirement, including offering combined bachelors and masters degrees in 3 years of study at one point, all the while dumbing down their courses to accommodate the foreign students and help to ensure they pass.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • BULMKT says:

      12:41pm | 09/03/10

      I was a blow in lecturer for two financial subjects at my local university.
      Week one I had 103 students and by week five it was down to 67 students even though 105 were registered for the subject. I told the students who turned up to the lectures that if they paid attention, then everything they would need to pass the subject would be covered in the lectures and tutorials. I wish my uni lecturers told me that when I went to uni. The students also had a rather larger assignment to complete – essentially the valuation of a company. There was no right or wrong valuation; it was the process of how to value a company that I wanted them to learn. I was told via the head of school that I had to tell the students the assignment marking schedule otherwise it was unfair on the student. Keep in mind this was a 3rd year subject so I figure they know what uni is all about.
      Now part of the assessment came from the student providing a verbal presentation of their results – like what a real analyst would do in front of clients. I was amazed at just how many students, both local and foreign that couldn’t even do a verbal presentation.
      The icing on the cake came after the final exams were completed and some foreign students DEMAND to know their results before they left for home. I told them, like I would tell any student that they get there results when I have marked everyone.
      I was told via the head of school that I couldn’t do that, but since i was the blow in lecturer i didn’t give a stuff as what could they do to me – not invite me back next yr? Which they did incidentally.
      Our universities cow tail to the foreign student and the overall standards of learning a terrible. Know wonder business has to retrain them.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • Anonymous says:

      12:17pm | 09/03/10

      I found this as a student at UniSA too.

      I did a course which had a single piece of assessment (a very large assignment due at the end of the semester). We were all randomly assigned to groups. As part of the assignment, we all had to give our teammates a grade out of ten for their teamwork. Our individual grade would then be the assignment grade weighted by the grade given to us by the other students in our group.

      I was in a group with one other student and four international students. The other student and I sent e-mails to the four internationals, asking them to meet with us to discuss the assignment but they never responded. After a few weeks, we gave up and assumed they’d dropped out and we did the whole assignment ourselves.

      Once we’d completed it (three days before it was due), we received an e-mail from one of the international students. He asked if there was anything he could do to help. We told him no, (shocked that he hadn’t contacted us eleven weeks earlier) it was all done and suggested he speak to the course coordinator.

      He said that unless we agreed to submit the assignment with all six names on it, he and the other three international students would give us both zero on our weighting.

      Luckily for us, he was stupid enough to put it in an e-mail, so we took it to the course coordinator and the four students all failed.

      Reply

    • jhm says:

      12:07pm | 09/03/10

      Perhaps if Universities were run less like businesses and more like educational institutions (ie stop caring more about money than students and providing quality education), then perhaps they would be treated less like businesses and more like educational institutions.  I have no sympathy for the university or lecturer who provides poor service getting bad press.  Service in this case is primarily providing quality teaching staff (who are available when required by the students), good curricula and reasonable facilities.  Poor quality, unavailable lecturers and tutors are what lead people to think that they’re wasting their money.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • Another Lecturer says:

      11:43am | 09/03/10

      This has been going on for years. 

      And it’s not just the students bullying the lecturers.  It’s the powers that be doing it as well with their “you can’t fail our international students, they’re worth too much and if they fail it causes them issues with their student visa and we lose their income, remark all their assessment pieces for the semester so that they get a pass mark”.  It happens.  With alarming regularity.  We’re asked to ignore blatant cases of plagiarism, remark 300 exams to make sure the average grade is 70% despite half the class failing due to tutorial attendance figures being around 20%, conveniently forced to ignore “spelling mistakes” - yeah here’s a newsflash, sulphate is NOT the same as sulphide, because we’re “not testing English in a science class”.

      Standards are dropping.  With the funding cuts over the last couple of decades which forced universities to rely on full-fee paying international students for financial survival, they’ve been forced to take on below-par students just to make up the funding shortfalls.  Maybe if the government actually bothered to rectify this funding situation, this problem could be significantly reduced by again only taking on the best of the best.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • Waza says:

      11:31am | 09/03/10

      Good, the end of universities is near.  I meet too many employees in my current job role with degrees who can’t do what their degree says, especially Economics and IT.

      You can read a book from the shelf and have more knowledge than a university student, and yes I have lectured at a university previously!

      As one IT professional said to me once,  this piece of paper that we call a degree only reallt tells an employer that the employee can learn quickly.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • lecturer says:

      10:54am | 09/03/10

      spot on tracey - you nailed the tertiary sector’s culture perfectly. thank you for highlighting the threat of the mickey mouse parchment because of bitter student evaluations. it is unfortunate students don’t realise the long term implications on their careers by unis lowering standards to please their customer in the short term.

      Reply

    • KW says:

      10:36am | 09/03/10

      I did a second degree a couple of years ago, and the difference between that and my first degree was truly astounding.  Some of the most stupid questions I have ever heard were asked by the ‘students’.  Some of the overseas students clearly couldn’t read/write in english properly, and the first half of each semester was spent reviewing the previous semester and going back over things already covered.

      I had to do one group assignment, and ended up insisting on handing in my own assignment, when I saw the poor quality of the work provided by 2 out of 3 of the group members.  The other one didn’t seem to think he had to do any work at all, and that he could cruise through on the grade we got for him.  One of them provided Wikipedia as a reference.  That was the final straw - she just didn’t understand the concept of a primary source, and that a website where a 13 year old in Russia can post an article posing as ‘an expert’ just wasn’t acceptable.

      Some questions asked showed that the person asking just hadn’t read the assignment question, or didn’t understand the it despite it being perfectly clear to me.  Or it was material already covered.

      Even more amazingly, these same dodos kept appearing semester after semester - I just couldn’t believe they were passing.  Their language skills were appalling in many cases; their comprehension non existent. 

      I understand universities make a lot of money out of overseas students, the flow on effects not so great for locals - less places, shortfalls in rental accommodation (particularly close to the city or the uni itself), but ultimately a degree that isn’t worth the paper it is written on is hardly an advertisement for our education system - the effects on local students who do have slightly better english skills (looking at some of the posts here, I can say the standard is still much lower than 20 years ago) must also be bad - surely it is preventing them from stretching themselves if they constantly have to wait for foreign students to catch up all the time.

      My first time around, if you failed a subject you were required to front up to an academic review committee and explain why you should be allowed to continue.  Now it seems everyone passes, no matter how little they understand of the course.  There must be a reason for this, and this article may be touching on some of that - I can imagine some people do see themselves as a ‘customer’ and not a scholar.  We do live in a world where everyone wins just for showing up (been to a kids party lately?) Certificates just for being there, thus reducing the value of the effort required to actually be good at something.  I really don’t see us moving far ahead in the future - Australia is falling behind, and education is one of the prime areas of concern.

      Reply

    • ?? says:

      01:58pm | 10/03/10

      i agree, too

    • 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.

    • rob says:

      11:30am | 09/03/10

      totally agreed

    • Retired teacher says:

      10:08am | 09/03/10

      As a battle scarred veteran of the educational field this article really lit my fire!  You’ve done well, Tracey but bullying is a rather tame, generic term.  Lets call it by its less attractive names like coercion, extortion, intimidation or blackmail.  These are against our laws and individuals can and DO go to jail for these activities.  Let’s have at them in our courts of law and when the dust has settled maybe both teachers and students will take education more seriously.

      Reply

    • Michael says:

      10:08am | 09/03/10

      I’d dispute that David,

      I’m a uni lecturer, I won’t mention which. I haven’t experienced some bullying, but I always make the point of explaining what is expected before the semester starts. I still give traditional face to face lectures. For explaining a concept its still quite valuable, however I also teach practicals, and problem based tutorials. I just had an example today of a student begging for the readings associated with a assessment which involved 10 true/false questions. This is even though the questions were of significant easiness that a simple search on Wiki or Google would have found the answers inside 30 minutes.

      Reply

    • the scientist says:

      10:02am | 09/03/10

      I finished my PhD about 6 years ago and now work in academia.  I teach undergraduates.  I am a good teacher and passionate about my area of expertise (I receive positive feedback from my students), but I would have to say that the general level of education is falling.  Trying to enthuse these students to think independently or even study at all is increasingly difficult.  I find that the first year students have only very basic writing skills entering university (Science), even getting them to understanding that their work should be handed in on time, and in proper English is a struggle.  They seem to resist actual learning as much as possible in case they are (god forbid) noticed as being the smart student!

      Not to mention dealing with parents who come in demanding to know what their kids need to do the pass the course - because their kid wont come and ask or attend an actual lecture.  Increasigly parents demand a breakdown of why their child got a credit on an assignment instead of a distinction.  I realise that they have paid a great deal to get their child to this point and want results, nor do I condone a falling standard of university teaching, but they fail to realise that they are hindering their child’s ability to learn.  They hover and their child (my student) never has an opportunity to grow and learn for themselves.  University should be a place of personal growth as well as intellectual growth, but I am seeing little evidence of that in our current students as well.  They take the easy way always and we are letting them.  It doesn’t bode well for the future.

      My take is that about 70% of students are not genuinely capable of university education on leaving high school.  I think increasingly a university degree is bought and not deserved.

      Reply

    • David says:

      09:51am | 09/03/10

      One of the biggest problems is simply that when students are paying large amounts of money (and the government is paying in even more), it is reasonable for students to expect a certain quality of teaching. Yes, students should be expected to do some work themselves but they should be able to get all of the information they need to pass the course from the lectures. This means that a lecturer should try to make their lectures interactive, asking students to think about the material.

      The days of a lecturer simply standing at the front and reading from a piece of paper he or she has used for the last 20 years are over. It is reasonable to expect that the lecturer will engage with students and (at the very least) use some forms of lecture aids to increase comprehension as well as the value of the lecture.

      Of course, students should expect to do some work on their own and think about material if they want to achieve high marks (after all a distinction or high distinction grade is for those students who distinguish themselves from the rest) but the course as it is presented should be sufficient for a student of reasonable intellectual capacity to pass. That requires quality lecturers who engage with students and use modern teaching methods rather than those straight out of the 1920s.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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:

      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…

    • 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:

      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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • matt says:

      09:34am | 09/03/10

      The bullying is going a bit far, perhaps, but as someone who’s paid more than $60,000 for postgraduate education, I can appreciate the sentiment.
      If you’re paying that much, you expect the very best lecturers and content.
      If it’s not up to standard then you’re well within your rights to complain and press for better service delivery.
      I did an MBA at the (former) Australian Graduate School of Management, (now the Australian School of Business at UNSW, and probably the best business school in the southern hemisphere) and you’ll find it’s not only the students who complain about the (thankfully occasional) bad lecturer, it’s the alumni, who don’t want to see their qualification undervalued because of poor reputation.
      I actually went ballistic after failing a financial services exam (I’d previously done the subject in my MBA, but due to the commercial nature of modern education, couldn’t get an exemption and had to pay the $1200 for the subject) and demanded a remark.
      After poring through the exam paper (which cost $250 to do!) I ended up with a distinction.
      Turns out the marker had basically got to my paper last and was over the whole thing.
      The marker was sacked.
      When my son starts school I dare say I’ll be making the same demands of his teachers - perform or get out.
      I’m not the only parent who thinks that way - why do you think Julia Gillard’s My School has been so popular?
      So while bullying is certainly out (and those who do it should be counselled, if not expelled), complaining and urging better performance from schools and unis should be done more often - if you’re concerned about your or your kids’ education.

      Reply

    • 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…

    • 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.

    • B says:

      09:24am | 09/03/10

      My most recent foray into the realm of ‘post-graduate’ study was so farcical I withdrew. Of course I had to cough up the substantial fees ($1500 per subject) just the same.  In some institutions the lecturers are perfectly suited to this new environment, being as sub-standard as the ‘scholars’ they teach.  I rated the intellectual level of my p-g subjects as probably suitable for a middle-brow 15-16 year old.  The subjects were clearly aimed at the lowest possible level in order to keep students onside and effortlessly passing their subjects. To assist this process many of the tutors provided no feedback. In this way they could avoid unpopular assessment .  Frankly I would be embarrassed to place any qualification from this institution after my name.  (Swinburne if anyone is interested)

      Reply

    • B says:

      04:58pm | 09/03/10

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

    • PGSnob says:

      02:48pm | 09/03/10

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

    • soltee says:

      09:23am | 09/03/10

      Tracey, your articles are so often full of wharrgarbl. How about “Janet Shepard” grows a set and reports this kid for blackmail? They’ll kick a student out for plagiarism, what do you think theyd do with evidence of this, especially since it would be well documented through the history on her facebook or whatever you meant by social media.
      Secondly, as Sam says above, the performance reviews by students are handed back well before exams are even taken. So how could anyone bully a lecturer to upgrade a mark in this way?
      Of course the kids want to take the easiest path through uni - this certainly isnt restricted to international students. Who wants to do hard work when theres no reward? Its up to the lecturers to assess the students properly and give an appropriate mark. The students will soon figure out how much work is required of them if they assessed properly.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • John in Alice says:

      09:05am | 09/03/10

      This situation is intolerable!  You are only a victim if you allow yourself to be.  Save threatening texts and carry a mini recording device for oral threats. We may even have to resort to video cameras in all classrooms to protect the innocent.  Laws should already be in place to insure the safety and well being of all citizens.

      Reply

    • Joel says:

      08:39am | 09/03/10

      As a current postgraduate student at a (once) respectable university, I believe what is being said in this article. The comment that “students no longer wish to be challenged to learn’ resonates - I came back to uni expecting to be thoroughly challenged at the postgraduate level and am doing much better than in my undergraduate degree because the courses are generally lacking in depth and cater to the lowest-common-denominator. I feel like my degree will be worthless (at least I will percieve it as so).

      Reply

    • Michael L says:

      08:23am | 09/03/10

      The use of industrial performance measures for research output is amazingly stupid. All you get is nothing articles filling journals made for publishing nothing articles at the expense of real advancement - perhaps one in ten academics can pursue meaningful research.

      People have been known and complained about it for decades but administrators, bureaucrats and other education revolutionaries seem immune.

      Reply

    • club matt says:

      07:56am | 09/03/10

      The student is the real looser in all of this. If a student bullies their way through their degree, the real world will sought them out when they graduate.
      My advice: learn as much as you can while you can and don’t complain. Students: if you think your teacher is hard or unfair wait until you get a boss.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • Jolanda says:

      07:49am | 09/03/10

      I have been making formal allegations of this nature for over 8 years in relation to bullying and victimisation of my children by the DET and the Selective Schools Unit that started after I complained about the neglect of their education as identified intellectually gifted children. The allegations include bullying and include systematic manipulation of test scores and school applications to the detriment of the childrens education and their mental health and well being.  The Minister for Education at the time ordered a formal investigation but the DET just closed the complaint without investigation and continued to target the children so that we presented distressed and with a story to tell that people found hard to believe.  The bully was promoted to a position of total power with total control over our complaints and children.  Requests for this person to not be permitted to have anything to do with our children were ignored on the basis that the allegations had not been substantiated.  The fact that they had not been investigated and instead just closed by the person responsible despite the Minister ordering an investigation didn’t seem to count.  The fact that the person responsible lied about everything and is clearly shown to have manipulated state records and lied doesn’t seem to count.  The investigatory bodies just asked the person responsible to respond and she just discredited me and lied and on the basis of the word of the person alleged to be responsible they refused to investigate the complaint.

      Until the system does something about the complaint handling process that is used to deal with complaints and that allows for the person being complained about (the bully) to handle and close their own complaint without question or challenge bullies will continue to rule and their targets will suffer.

      For years we have fought to right this injustice and for years we have been ignored.  People do not seem to care too much about the bullying of children by education staff.  What they do not realise is that this is where the bullying stems and until you deal with it at the top then nothing will change.

      Education – Keeping them Honest
      http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • bella starkey says:

      07:34am | 09/03/10

      I wish I thought of doing this when I was at uni

      Reply

    • Sam says:

      07:20am | 09/03/10

      At the ANU, student evaluations are done in the final week of semester, well before the final exams. This would seem to mitigate problems like this. You’ve already completed your evaluation long before you receive your marks.

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • JJJ says:

      06:40am | 09/03/10

      If students are paying for an education in a world where the customer is always right, how can any service provider (i.e. teacher/lecturer) justify failure or poor marks?

      Reply

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • Bec says:

      05:14am | 09/03/10

      It happens in independent secondary schools, too. Two students made an official complaint about a ‘dud’ maths teacher who had the temerity to not allow swearing, lateness and a refusal to complete work into the class at my school last month. Thank god this pair of stooges are a minority; fortunately, the others are not so convinced that they are entitled to good marks just because of the fees their parents pay. (Also, they too can recognise that she’s one of the best maths teachers to come through: tough, hard-working, and gifted at making the teaching accessible to all levels of achievement.)

      Reply
 
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