tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/academic-standards-16229/articlesAcademic standards – The Conversation2021-07-18T20:04:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1626122021-07-18T20:04:48Z2021-07-18T20:04:48ZOur uni teachers were already among the world’s most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411127/original/file-20210713-15-2odvfa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C47%2C4560%2C3233&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-tired-female-professor-having-headache-1950069691">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s higher education workforce has literally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/03/more-than-17000-jobs-lost-at-australian-universities-during-covid-pandemic">been decimated</a> during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mass forced <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-spending-recovery-budget-leaves-universities-out-in-the-cold-160439">redundancies and non-renewal of casual contracts</a> were highly stressful. And now some disciplines and academics who committed their lives to teaching feel publicly invalidated as unnecessary in the reconstruction of the sector to produce what the government deems to be “<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-flaws-in-job-ready-graduates-package-will-add-to-the-turmoil-in-australian-higher-education-147740">job-ready graduates</a>”.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1360080X.2021.1934246?journalCode=cjhe20">recent review</a> finds academics in Australia and New Zealand were suffering high levels of occupational stress well before COVID-19. Recent upheavals only added to existing problems. This is likely to jeopardise recruitment and retention of staff even in the very areas, such as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-18/healthcare-social-services-stable-jobs-after-coronavirus/12462670">health, teaching and medicine</a>, where the government expects high future demand.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2021-22-budget-has-added-salt-to-universities-covid-wounds-160862">The 2021-22 budget has added salt to universities' COVID wounds</a>
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<p>Our research team members are now turning their attention to the <a href="https://scuau.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6XWZoavOraIaZts">impacts of anonymous student feedback</a> on academics’ well-being. Preliminary findings suggest it’s having extreme impacts on the mental health of some of the workforce that remains, especially early career academics. We are also investigating their perceptions of the impacts of this feedback on teaching quality and academic standards. </p>
<h2>What are the main sources of stress?</h2>
<p>The review of university teaching staff over the past 20 years found five key factors contributed to stress and distress: </p>
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<li><p>balancing teaching and research workloads</p></li>
<li><p>lack of job security in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-70-of-academics-at-some-universities-are-casuals-theyre-losing-work-and-are-cut-out-of-jobkeeper-137778">increasingly casualised workforce</a></p></li>
<li><p>the role transition from professional to academic practice in applied disciplines — for example, a shift-working nurse moving from a hospital setting to teaching in a university</p></li>
<li><p>role differences for academics compared to other university staff such as administrative and IT staff as most academics have to work after hours and on weekends to manage their workload and meet performance indicators for research and teaching (including student feedback scores)</p></li>
<li><p>the overarching impacts on the sector of “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1991.tb00779.x">new public managerialism</a>”.</p></li>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-70-of-academics-at-some-universities-are-casuals-theyre-losing-work-and-are-cut-out-of-jobkeeper-137778">More than 70% of academics at some universities are casuals. They're losing work and are cut out of JobKeeper</a>
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<p>Since the 1990s, managerialism has become firmly <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713696158">embedded in university culture</a>. This <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287312918_Hierarchy_and_Organisation_Toward_a_General_Theory_of_Hierarchical_Social_Systems">managerialism</a> reflects beliefs about management’s power and tight control over staff. </p>
<p>Academics are facing tighter managerial control and greater surveillance. Every facet of their role is subject to oversight and regulation. </p>
<p>The great changes in technology have contributed to this situation. While technology may enable and enhance the educational experience online, it’s also increasingly used to monitor and manage performance. </p>
<p>Universities that have embraced performance management, reduced the professional autonomy of teaching staff and demanded increased productivity have the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-013-9668-y">lowest rates of job satisfaction</a>. Australian academics’ satisfaction with their jobs and their institutions’ management is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1360080X.2010.491111">very low</a> compared to other countries. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/journal-papers-grants-jobs-as-rejections-pile-up-its-not-enough-to-tell-academics-to-suck-it-up-153886">Journal papers, grants, jobs ... as rejections pile up, it's not enough to tell academics to 'suck it up'</a>
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<h2>What about the students?</h2>
<p>Ultimately, overworking and micro-managing teaching staff may <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00663-2">lead to burnout</a> and reduced enthusiasm for teaching. Additionally, an overemphasis on student retention and happiness may contribute to an erosion of academic standards. </p>
<p>Increasingly, though, the performance, promotion and continuing tenure of academics are directly <a href="https://srhe.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02602938.2016.1224997?casa_token=LcbiXoxQKs4AAAAA%3AU3CHGTJo8innyzXX9q22rR3o76FXYXSGpvFvo8W1ybdV5Rm6RNhZeD0aQqJIL6Xa9J0UuycoMMwLQQ#.YMf0MKhLjIU">aligned with measures of student satisfaction and success</a>. The number of students who pass is one such measure. </p>
<p>This means many academics must struggle to balance keeping students happy, ensuring they succeed, while trying to maintain professional and academic standards. Many must also find the time to produce “quality” research outputs in an increasingly competitive environment. </p>
<p>Student satisfaction is now almost universally gauged through online surveys. These include <a href="https://idp.springer.com/authorize/casa?redirect_uri=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10734-014-9716-2.pdf&casa_token=wvbqjhCYPacAAAAA:WnQ1smQOsk66t0RGgqEgiULaLgGK5ou3TULwgAhgD40b9R6zguhLzZ43qvTV5zChh6pHgaM0K37cdv0okQ">anonymous verbatim student comments</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Man reads from laptop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411130/original/file-20210713-13-118ak6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Academics report PTSD-like responses to the unfiltered anonymous feedback from student surveys.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-handsome-man-working-on-laptop-1744217480">Shutterstock</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stressed-out-dropping-out-covid-has-taken-its-toll-on-uni-students-152004">Stressed out, dropping out: COVID has taken its toll on uni students</a>
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<p>So far, several hundred academics have completed our research team’s voluntary <a href="https://scuau.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6XWZoavOraIaZts">survey</a>. The majority report receiving comments that were distressing, offensive or disrespectful. Even though these student comments are personally hurtful, many report that such comments are not redacted before being distributed, sometimes widely, within the university. </p>
<p>Universities appear to neglect the impacts of this feedback on academic well-being and reputation. One respondent wrote:</p>
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<p>“I have watched colleagues go through a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of sorts when evaluation swings around. They have a physiological response: sweaty palms and rapid heart rate.”</p>
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<p>It remains to be seen how extensive this experience is and how the problem can be managed so an experienced, qualified and enthusiastic workforce is maintained. </p>
<p>If you are an Australian health academic who would like to be involved in this research on the influence of anonymous narrative student feedback, please consider completing this ten-minute <a href="https://scuau.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6XWZoavOraIaZts">survey</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162612/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Workplace stress among academics has long been higher in Australia and New Zealand than overseas, and research suggests the flow-on impacts on students could fuel a vicious cycle of negative feedback.Megan Lee, Academic Tutor and PhD Candidate, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross UniversityDima Nasrawi, Lecturer in Nursing, Southern Cross UniversityMarie Hutchinson, Professor of Nursing, Southern Cross UniversityRichard Lakeman, Senior Lecturer, Health & Human Sciences, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497562015-11-02T04:28:23Z2015-11-02T04:28:23ZSouth Africa’s universities risk becoming bureaucratic degree factories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99798/original/image-20151027-5004-fh5j5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Universities are losing sight of their role as places of teaching and learning. Instead, they are becoming hugely stressed business enterprises.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/mar/25/university-protests-around-the-world-a-fight-against-commercialisation">around the world</a> have become stressed business enterprises. Funding considerations now dominate institutional strategy. This <a href="https://theconversation.com/students-arent-customers-or-are-they-13282">commercialisation</a> is often driven by falling government subsidies and funding pressures.</p>
<p>South African universities have tried to cover the declining government income by raising the only other major funding source they have control over – student fees. The result of that attempted balancing act? Probably the biggest student protest action the country has seen since it became a democracy in 1994. </p>
<p>Students decried not only the proposed increases but the idea of paying for university at all, organising themselves under the banner of “Fees must fall”. But this is unsustainable without massive government funding.</p>
<p>On closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the way the government structures its tertiary funding is actually the source of many of the deeper troubles in the sector. These incentives have been a major factor in making South African higher education mediocre. They have also eroded academic leadership at universities.</p>
<h2>The rise of ‘degree factories’</h2>
<p>The government’s subsidy to universities is, to a large extent, regulated by two parameters: student degree completion and <a href="https://theconversation.com/academics-must-still-publish-or-perish-under-revamped-research-funding-policy-48437">“research output”</a>. In both instances it is quantity rather than quality that determines the amount of money a university receives from government. </p>
<p>Research subsidies are in essence proportional to the sum of articles in accredited journals multiplied by the fraction of authors from that institution. The annual number of graduations – which in itself is determined by how quickly students complete their studies – is the crucial parameter determining the teaching subsidy.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this has repositioned some programs at institutions of higher learning into little more than degree factories and producers of irrelevant, poorly researched junk articles. This is the natural outcome of the imperative to balance the books.</p>
<p>There are problems at the basic level of teaching and learning, too. Each year the <a href="https://theconversation.com/moving-beyond-the-educational-blame-game-in-south-africa-43071">National Benchmark Tests</a> highlight just how badly prepared most incoming university students are. This is the result of 12 years of sub-standard teaching in most South African schools.</p>
<p>As a lecturer I can attest that my colleagues and I have a problem with too many students’ work ethos. Absenteeism, lateness and inattentiveness in class are common, leaving lecturers constantly frustrated. All these factors, and the results of the benchmark tests, suggest that failure rates will be high.</p>
<p>But university managements demand and get far higher pass rates than <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140425131554856">you’d expect</a>, though these still fall short of international averages. To meet these expectations, many lecturers simplify their courses, frequently promoting practices like “spotting” – encouraging students to guess which questions may be asked and to focus their study efforts on these – and rote learning. Where is the room for critical thought in this equation?</p>
<h2>Academics as bureaucrats</h2>
<p>There’s been a major push by universities to encourage research production. Through incentives and performance pressure all South African universities have achieved massive growth in the number of papers published. For example, my institution, the University of Johannesburg, almost doubled its research output between 2009 and 2013.</p>
<p>Too often, however, academics are being forced to compromise quality to produce what’s expected of them. Research that could be published in a single high impact journal is being chopped into pieces to produce more – rather than better – articles.</p>
<p>Worst of all, academics have allowed themselves to be relegated to a <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/by-the-role-divided/406078.article">functional mechanical</a> role. They manage their station on the conveyor belt to graduation, but seldom fulfil their intellectual leadership function. </p>
<p>It is telling how often universities, supposedly the traditional repositories of supreme intellect and knowledge, engage outside and only moderately qualified <a href="http://www.chet.org.za/papers/globalisation-and-outsourced-university-south-africa">consultants</a> to provide basic advice. The skills and intellect in their midst are neither tapped nor appreciated. </p>
<p>It appears that academics have simply not been sufficiently assertive and have been content with their role as a cog in the machine that is the modern South African university. Instead, they revert to the role of armchair critics, reacting to events that are unfolding rather than crafting ideas themselves that take society forward.</p>
<p>The ideal is for the thinkers at universities to formulate, analyse and drive societal progress and evolution. Too often today this role is being delegated to apparatchiks with their bulleted Powerpoint slides shuffled between meal breaks at overpriced conference centres.</p>
<h2>A crucial pillar</h2>
<p>Realistically, we can’t insist on a quality academic project, reject managerialism and mediocrity without a dramatic boost to higher education funding.</p>
<p>South Africa must recognise universities as a strong asset with a massive potential to solve developmental problems. They are not degree mills that need to be kept in perpetual anxiety about their financial viability.</p>
<p>It is crucial, therefore, that freezing or decreasing of fees in the wake of student protests doesn’t lead to reduced spending on academia. Instead, we need to regenerate this currently depressed but critical pillar of society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hartmut Winkler receives funding from NRF. </span></em></p>When funding imperatives dominate universities’ strategies, higher education loses sight of the work it ought to be doing: developing graduates who can make a real difference in the world.Hartmut Winkler, Professor of Physics, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/419702015-05-19T20:03:15Z2015-05-19T20:03:15ZBook review: Selling Students Short<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81983/original/image-20150518-25403-xemh5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Selling students short comes at an important time for higher education in Australia: funding uncertainties and questions over academic standards have never been more pronounced. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Richard Hil’s <a href="http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781743318898">Selling Students Short: Why You Won’t Get the Education You Deserve</a> is a timely exposé of the difficult conditions facing students at Australia’s increasingly corporatised universities.</p>
<p>The book is a follow-up to Hil’s <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/whackademia_an-insiders-account-of-the-troubled-university/">Whackademia: An Insider’s Account of the Troubled University</a>. This focused on the perspective of academics struggling to negotiate progressively more burdensome bureaucracies.</p>
<p>Shifting to the “student experience”, Selling Students Short is a companion piece to Whackademia that mirrors one of the National Tertiary Education Union’s <a href="http://www.nteu.org.au/article/NTEU-message-to-students-about-May-21-Strike-16279">consistent refrains</a> from recent industrial action across the country:</p>
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<p>Our working conditions are your learning conditions.</p>
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<p>Hil’s wit and frequently irreverent tone afford the reader a more pleasurable experience than might be expected given the dire conditions of Australian universities that he details. The situation has largely been brought about by a steady decrease in Commonwealth funding, coupled with a dramatic expansion of student enrolment numbers in recent years. </p>
<p>Large sections of the book are devoted to discussions and interviews Hil conducted with 150 students around the country. It may be tempting to dismiss these accounts on the basis of their anecdotal nature, but readers would be remiss to do so. The focus on student narratives is a welcome antidote to the “empirical drudgery” that pervades “the great student surveyathon”, which Hil argues places far too much faith in metrics and measures of student satisfaction. </p>
<p>One student interviewed by Hil lamented that the federally funded University Experience Survey published in 2014 posed questions that felt like he was “being asked to comment on the quality of a service at a local supermarket”.</p>
<h2>Increasing focus on brand power</h2>
<p>The corporate culture of universities has responded to increased competition with an increasing focus on marketing and brand management. Hil’s chapter on “Brand Power” deftly lampoons some of the more head-scratchingly silly mottos to emerge from costly consultancies. Deakin’s slogan — “We’re not only worldly, we’re world class” — comes in for some deserving rebuke. The glibness of such language pervades many aspects of student life. </p>
<p>One comes away from this chapter with the impression that the marketisation of the student experience is not only an unnecessary and wasteful use of taxpayer money, but is also shabbily executed. More worrisome is that such gimmicks </p>
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<p>seriously debase and trivialise what universities are supposed to be about: teaching, research, scholarship and professional service. </p>
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<p>University managers increasingly refer to students as “consumers” and “clients” without grasping how this language both reflects and reshapes teacher-student relationships in harmful ways. One of the most basic insights that academics in the humanities cultivate in their students is an appreciation for how language is never innocent and neutral. Yet the corporate ethos of universities seems to ignore this. </p>
<p>The overall impression that one gleans from Hil’s book is that academics and students are increasingly expected to follow decisions that come from above. The critical thinking skills that we foster in our teaching and research are to be thrown out the window as soon as they conflict with management imperatives. </p>
<p>For example, the growing shift toward online and “blended learning” has been welcomed by some students for pragmatic reasons. However, Hil’s discussions with students (some of whom had no choice but to study online because of work or family commitments), as well as the academic research that he cites, overwhelmingly show that the majority of students still prefer face-to-face learning. Whether universities will listen to student preference remains to be seen.</p>
<h2>International students</h2>
<p>Hil’s chapter on the international student market also contains a number of first-person narratives from students whose high course fees cross-subsidise those of their domestic counterparts. This chapter is the most disquieting from an ethical point of view. Hil’s conclusion that foreign students are being “fleeced in order to prop up Australia’s teetering university system” is hard to argue with. </p>
<p>That many foreign students possess weak English language skills and find themselves struggling to stay afloat underscores just how exploitative and morally hazardous the international student market has become. This chapter also includes a brief discussion of allegations of fraud and deception in this market. </p>
<p>Hil documents accusations that overseas recruitment agents and other middlemen have coached prospective students to pass English language tests and have doctored credentials. The recent exposé on Four Corners called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4YsjxTgOLk">“Degrees of Deception”</a> and an investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption lend further support to Hil’s findings and have motivated Senator Kim Carr to call for an <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/four-corners-allegations-must-be-investigated-kim-carr/story-e6frgcjx-1227314161161">immediate federal investigation</a>.</p>
<p>Selling Students Short has emerged at an important time in Australian tertiary education. Christopher Pyne’s proposal to deregulate fees has twice failed to pass the Senate. It occupies a notional space in the government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/pyne-fails-to-deliver-any-surprises-in-the-higher-education-budget-41741">recent budget</a>, but barring either a sudden change of heart among key crossbenchers or a <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/politics/christopher-pyne-plans-election-trigger-20150401-1mcnfo">double dissolution</a>, full fee deregulation seems unlikely. At least in the near future. </p>
<p>As a number of <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2015/05/14/pyne-ignores-elephant-lecture-hall-reactions-higher-ed-budget">commentators</a> have observed, Pyne’s failure to pass fee deregulation has been an unintended gift to the university sector in one crucial respect: it has spawned a long-overdue public debate about the nature and purpose of public higher education, a discussion to which Hil’s book productively contributes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Peterson is affiliated with The National Alliance for Public Universities</span></em></p>Richard Hil’s Selling Students Short: Why You Won’t Get the Education You Deserve is a timely exposé of the difficult conditions facing students at Australia’s increasingly corporatised universities.Christopher Peterson, Senior Lecturer in American Literature, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407522015-04-24T04:00:28Z2015-04-24T04:00:28ZBiased reports on international students not helpful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79204/original/image-20150424-25563-rx8zrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Have cheating and plagiarism increased in universities as a symptom of more international students or just of more students?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Monday’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm">Four Corners episode</a> shed some much-needed light on longstanding problems in our higher education sector. Most importantly, it highlighted the role of some dodgy overseas education agents and the apparent collusion of some universities in fraudulent recruitment schemes for international students. </p>
<p>Pressing questions were raised about the status of academic integrity in the lucrative billion-dollar business, in which Australian universities find themselves under unprecedented pressure to raise revenue. This is in a context of high demand for an Australian education experience by international students and their families.</p>
<p>Throughout this important story thread, unfortunately, the producers seemed unable to resist the siren song of catchy jingoism, parading background shots of nameless Asian students walking through universities while the voiceover spoke of “corruption, widespread plagiarism, cheating and exploitation”. The problems raised are real, but the tone taken does both our universities and our students a grave disservice.</p>
<h2>Universities today, the changed context</h2>
<p>Australian universities consistently perform very strongly in the major international rankings of universities. Many of our institutions quite rightly claim to be “world class”. </p>
<p>Having a strong international reputation means taking part in the international scholarly community. Students from around the world want to come to Australia to study – <a href="https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/australias-universities/key-facts-and-data#.VTme5CljqM4">around a quarter of million</a> of them. In the context of shrinking public investment in higher education, the fees these students pay are integral to university budgets.</p>
<p>At the same time as the expansion in international student participation has been taking place, Australia has seen very rapid growth in participation by domestic students. <a href="https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/australias-universities/key-facts-and-data#.VTme5CljqM4">Around one million</a> Australians presently attend university – double the number that attended two decades ago. </p>
<p>Local students, too, come from diverse backgrounds. More come from families with no experience of university education, or from families where English is not the main language spoken.</p>
<p>In short, the university is no longer an enclave for a small group of Anglo-Saxon elites brought up in “good families” and having attended “good schools”. When Australian universities go mass and global, diversity becomes inherent. The Four Corners episode ignored this diversity.</p>
<p>Higher education in Australia is now big, diverse and international. Being vigilant in eradicating poor practice when it occurs should not be conflated with hand-wringing that our domestic and international students no longer fit the norms of the “elite” era of higher education.</p>
<h2>Cheaters and the cheated</h2>
<p>Anecdotal evidence about plagiarism is a good example here. The program explicitly drew a link between the surge of overseas students and “the increase in plagiarism”, blaming the rising participation of international students in Australian tertiary education for falling academic standards. </p>
<p>It would be unsurprising if plagiarism was on the increase – more students likely means more cheating, unfortunately. But do international students plagiarise more than locals? Or are perceptions that this is the case simply an effect of increasing participation and better software? It is hard to tell.</p>
<p>One thing is certain though – this kind of practice is a rarity. If plagiarism is indeed widespread in some courses or some institutions, we should be shocked and it is right to call it out. However, we need to be careful in creating the impression, as Four Corners did, that this is some kind of new or predominantly Asian problem.</p>
<p>What was disappointing about the Four Corners episode was the disservice it did to international students by presenting them as either cheats or victims. </p>
<p>International students are a heterogeneous group. Their capacities, aspirations and behaviours as learners ought not to be simplified and stamped with certain stereotypes.</p>
<p>Deakin University education researcher <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11717702/Tran_L._T_forthcoming_._Mobility_as_becoming_A_Bourdieuian_analysis_of_the_factors_shaping_international_student_mobility._British_Journal_of_Sociology_of_Education">Ly Tran</a> conducted semi-structured interviews with 105 international students in 25 vocational education institutions across Australia. She found many aspired to develop their skills and knowledge so that they can advance in their chosen profession and transform their professional self.</p>
<p>The program’s explicit emphasis on depicting international students as strugglers with a mere motive to pass and a threat to the Australian academic standard may subsequently create an incomplete and biased imagining of international students.</p>
<p>Again, the claim that cheating and plagiarism occur is not contentious. That’s why we have double marking and specialised software. But what of the outstanding students that come here to study?</p>
<p>When an employer sees an Asian face on a person holding an Australian degree, should they be asking themselves whether this person falls in the cheat category or the victim category? What an awful disservice to these graduates.</p>
<h2>A better way forward</h2>
<p>The alarming message from the episode to Australian tertiary education is that institutions must think hard and act fast to protect their academic integrity against the temptation of profit-making and from sub-standard, even criminal, practices. But we need to watch out for unnecessary effects on public perceptions and treatment of international students.</p>
<p>The sense of feeling welcome and the sense of belonging to the learning environment and the host society is indispensable to international students’ well-being, their education experience and social integration in a foreign country. </p>
<p>In the cause of protecting and improving the credibility and prestige of Australian education, we must guard against parochial institutional and social stereotypes. These promote hostility to international students, especially the vast majority with genuine capacities and aspirations.</p>
<p>Instead, working on institutional and social conditions to improve understanding of international students’ dreams and struggles, protect their rights and enable these students to contribute to Australian academic integrity is exactly where we should start.</p>
<hr>
<p>Read more of The Conversation’s coverage of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/academic-dishonesty-in-australia">Academic dishonesty in Australia</a> here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While Four Corners shed some much-needed light on long-standing problems in higher education, these problems aren’t reserved for international students.Emmaline Bexley, Lecturer in Higher Education, The University of MelbourneThao Vu, PhD Candidate in Education, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/404642015-04-21T01:19:58Z2015-04-21T01:19:58ZThe slide of academic standards in Australia: a cautionary tale<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78651/original/image-20150420-25705-1efc5cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When thinking about academic standards, it's important to think about the incentives to keep standards high - or low.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-unis-should-take-responsibility-for-corrupt-practices-in-international-education-40380">recent furore</a> about academic standards in Australian higher education – including Monday night’s damning <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm">Four Corners expose</a> – has the potential to bring not only desperately needed attention, but actual change, to the sector. </p>
<p>The uninitiated observer of this frenzy may struggle to gain a balanced understanding of what has gone wrong, and how much more wrong it has gone in Australia than in other countries. </p>
<p>Let’s take a good look through the lens of an economist at where academic standards come from and how they are nurtured, so as to have a hope of crafting an Australian policy remedy.</p>
<h2>Lesson 1: incentives matter</h2>
<p>Any economist recognises these as the most important two words that our discipline offers. In the case of what is taught in higher education, the “<em>cui bono?</em>” question – meaning “to whose benefit?” in Latin – asks who stands to gain from actively upholding academic standards, and who stands to gain from their decline.</p>
<p>Let’s first consider the top leadership of a university: those responsible for making ends meet. This group, having increasingly lost ground in the battle for funding from the Commonwealth and having <a href="https://theconversation.com/top-ranked-universities-have-more-money-than-australian-unis-could-dream-of-39189">precious little endowment</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-balance-sheets-tell-us-only-some-are-right-to-cry-poor-37093">alumni-sourced revenue</a> – frequent go-to sources in other countries – has been pushed further and further toward dependence on the market for education services in order to meet its spending targets. </p>
<p>This translates into a need to focus squarely on customer appeal. The question then changes to: what do young high school graduates want from university?</p>
<p>Most want a job when they get out, and most also want to have a pleasant student experience, and neither of these is particularly well-correlated with their program’s level of academic excellence. Most also want to attend the best university that they can get into, and this would normally lead to pressure to uphold academic standards, since the university that is seen as “the best” will presumably be more successful at attracting students. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78656/original/image-20150420-25721-esd8a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What do school leavers look for in a university? Student experience, job readiness, or academic rigour?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, university quality isn’t always obvious to an outsider. What’s more, Australian domestic students do not typically change cities in order to attend university, meaning that Group of Eight universities all have either monopoly or two-player oligopoly access to demand from most of the top students within their home city. </p>
<p>This translates into market power for those institutions lucky enough to be already at the top of the rankings, which in turn means less of a competitive incentive to keep standards high in order to keep students coming.</p>
<p>Finally, let’s consider the incentives of academics. Academics are judged on both research productivity and teaching “quality”, where the latter is typically measured using student evaluations of teaching that are conducted online. </p>
<p>Because no serious incentives are given to students to fill in these online forms, most response samples are comically small in size. It would not be unreasonable to suspect that those students who do fill out evaluations are frequently the ones who either adored or hated the teacher. </p>
<p>Students don’t like feeling bad about their performance or being pulled up for academic misconduct, and can use teaching evaluations as a vehicle to make their displeasure known. </p>
<p>Academics also frequently face large time and effort costs if they pursue problems like plagiarism and academic misconduct, not to mention the raised eyebrows from university management if too large a fraction of students fail. </p>
<p>In sum, the university bureaucracy sees strong incentives to let standards slide in order to please prospective students and thereby get more revenue, while the individual academic at the coal face sees strong incentives to go easy on students so that students are happy and the academic’s chances of promotion are favourable.</p>
<h2>Lesson 2: academia is defined by academics</h2>
<p>Notwithstanding the protestations of teaching and learning administrators, academic standards cannot be perfectly pinned down in assessment rubrics or statements of learning objectives. </p>
<p>This is because evaluating university students’ work is largely subjective: it is based on the gut feel of the person doing the evaluation, where that gut feel is formed over years of exposure to the type of work that is expected in the given discipline.</p>
<p>This means that academics are ultimately the only valid institutional store of knowledge about what academic standards should be. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78653/original/image-20150420-25725-9azruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Academics are really the only ones who can say what academic standards should be.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is a better chance of Australian universities keeping up with international best practice if academics have been rigorously trained, are active in professional bodies, travel regularly to high-profile conferences, and so on.</p>
<p>In truly world-class universities, the bureaucracy plays second fiddle to the academics who produce the service that the university sells. By contrast, in many universities in Australia, arguably the tail is wagging the dog. </p>
<p>Entrenched and disproportionately powerful bureaucracies act like fiefdoms, perennially announcing new platforms that the rank-and-file scurry to be seen to embed, and rewarding or punishing academics in accordance with how well they are seen to toe the party line.</p>
<h2>The policy response</h2>
<p>What to do? Some countries have trialled the creation of explicit sector-wide learning standards, endorsed by various groups, in a bid to control what gets taught (like the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/testingstudentanduniversityperformancegloballyoecdsahelo.htm">Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes in the UK</a>). </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78654/original/image-20150420-25711-1t2aoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Make students surveys compulsory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3475417696/in/photolist-6i7qAL-dXTThm-k4LmDT-aFeJrf-cVmRf7-dQFZHk-cVmSaw-54biY7-9sFaaD-fPavA9-fFs1k-fFs9g-fFsiL-fFsfh-fFs5T-fFsh4-fFsbn-fFs76-fFs3e-fFsds-6iiZGo-89ofQY-9QYkgL-athJTp-6Mnnm1-boQV57-bBKQzc-Ps5Bk-4pnff5-bu5HVP-bu5KyR-bu5JYp-jrP5xy-bu5Jtt-ati1uT-k4KmQB-pQBCjN-mXzciZ-7fnnJw-9REi7J-4EjVBt-99smVp-9qVPap-tKe8X-o75fzC-7YzmZM-km18x7-doQhEj-7XKwwh-ffN5Ti">Ed Yourdan/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Commonwealth-sponsored <a href="http://disciplinestandards.pbworks.com/w/page/52657697/FrontPage">National Discipline Standards in Australia project</a>, which taps selected professionals from across the country to develop explicit statements of academic standards in different fields (such as <a href="http://www.economicslearningstandards.com/index.html">economics</a>), falls under this heading. Without wide adoption by academics and embedding in university departments, however, such standards have a hollow ring to them.</p>
<p>No intervention will provide an overnight fix. Those who benefit from the present system will wince at the prospect of the potential remedies below being put to public debate and independent evaluation.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Require student evaluations to be submitted by every student as a pre-requisite for the release of their final marks each semester. This small systems change – designed to shift students’ incentives to provide feedback – will make the provision of student feedback operate more like voting, and less like blackmail.</p></li>
<li><p>Have teachers evaluate each other on a rotating basis and use these evaluations in promotion decisions. At the same time, mandate the complete freedom of individual academics to fail as many students as they see fit to fail, ensuring that appeal committees (staffed by academics) and support services are in place to process an increase in the numbers of failing students.</p></li>
<li><p>Connect the admissions and teaching functions of the university by increasing the voice of teaching academics in the admissions process. Admissions decisions are an academic matter, and should be treated as such.</p></li>
<li><p>Mandate an increase in the voice of academics within university governance more broadly. While Commonwealth funding to the higher education sector has fallen dramatically over the past 30 years, it is also true that large amounts of money are spent on <a href="http://www.modern-cynic.org/2013/05/08/university-leaders/">large salaries to university bureaucrats</a> with <a href="http://economics.com.au/?p=9696">questionable academic credentials</a>. We should design university governance to raise the voice of those who know what academic standards are, and whose personal incentives it serves to uphold them.</p></li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>Read more of The Conversation’s coverage of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/academic-dishonesty-in-australia">Academic dishonesty in Australia</a> here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gigi Foster receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She was a member of the national Office of Learning and Teaching-sponsored working party on the project entitled "Embedding and benchmarking core knowledge and skills as the foundation for learning standards in the undergraduate economics curriculum".</span></em></p>The recent furore about academic standards in Australian higher education – including Monday’s damning Four Corners expose – has the potential to bring not only desperately needed attention, but actual change, to the sector.Gigi Foster, Associate Professor, School of Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/403802015-04-20T11:21:29Z2015-04-20T11:21:29ZAustralian unis should take responsibility for corrupt practices in international education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78546/original/image-20150420-3238-14d7jnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">International students provide universities with a large chunk of their revenue - but at what cost?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/44534236@N00/4730575439">Faungg/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The higher education sector has become increasingly reliant on income from fee-paying international students since Australian universities first entered foreign markets in 1986, <a href="http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/article/4781">a new report from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption says</a>. </p>
<p>From 1988-2014, the number of international students at Australian universities <a href="http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/article/4781">increased 13-fold</a>. These students now comprise 18% of the student population in NSW universities, and often exceed 25%. </p>
<p>In many business schools, this percentage is substantially higher. The need to generate revenue has often conflicted with the obligation to ensure academic quality and integrity. However, to date, the “blame” for declining standards has tended to rest with international students themselves rather than educational institutions or the sector more broadly.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/article/4781">range of corruption issues</a> that has emerged suggests standards have indeed been compromised. These include: falsification of entry documents, cheating in English language proficiency tests, online contract cheat sites selling assignments or providing the means for so-called “file sharing”, widespread plagiarism, and cheating and fraud in examinations.</p>
<p>It is <a href="http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/monash:64104?collection=monash%253A63642">widely known by all stakeholders in the sector</a> that a significant number of international students for whom English is an additional language struggle to meet the linguistic and academic demands of their courses. </p>
<p>It is also widely known that international students are burdened with additional pressures relating to culture, finance, family and peer groups. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78563/original/image-20150420-7631-h3wkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The My Master cheating scandal uncovered a website international students were using to purchase essays.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While cheating is certainly not limited to international students, they are particularly vulnerable to the brazen marketing tactics of a burgeoning cheating industry which has the capacity to infiltrate social media, university email systems and message boards. This occurs both on campus and online. </p>
<p>International students are easy targets for unscrupulous businesses advertising “assistance” with assignments and exams. They are striving to make sense of the new academic environment and <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=334865480475401;res=IELHSS">often have inadequate English or poor educational preparation</a>. They may also have entered the system with false credentials, or may have come from cultures more accepting of practices that we would regard as corrupt.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mymaster-essay-cheating-scandal-more-than-70-university-students-face-suspension-20150318-1425oe.html">media have been at the forefront</a> in exposing cheating and plagiarism scandals by international students. The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-university-to-crack-down-on-cheating-following-mymaster-investigation-20150413-1mju3q.html">recent MyMaster investigation</a> revealed the widespread use of cheat sites. In this case, Chinese students could purchase ready-made essays on a given topic. </p>
<p>The resulting public outcry has, at times, been little more than thinly veiled racism. International students have been blamed for declining academic standards, while the higher education sector has not been held to account.</p>
<p>The recently released <a href="http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/article/4781">ICAC NSW report</a> has turned its attention to the role of universities in enabling and facilitating corrupt practices. </p>
<p>The report suggests that Australian universities were not well prepared to enter the international student market. This lack of preparation had long-reaching and most often negative consequences. </p>
<p>The report says competition for international students has led universities to:</p>
<ul>
<li>aggressively market for international students without considering the associated costs and risks </li>
<li>set inappropriately low English language requirements</li>
<li>rely on largely unregulated agents with inducements to submit applications from insufficiently qualified students or, worse, to submit fraudulent applications</li>
<li>establish offshore partnerships without the necessary due diligence </li>
<li>set recruitment KPIs, reinforced by financial incentives, with no accountability for quality or resulting pressures on academic workloads</li>
<li>leave the burden of maintaining standards with teaching academics, while simultaneously pressuring them to pass work of insufficient quality and turn a blind eye to misconduct.</li>
</ul>
<p>ABC TV’s Four Corners expose, “Degrees of Deception”, validated every one of ICAC’s conclusions. The program gave voice to the desperation of many academics. Their life work of teaching has been undermined by an environment that has little to do with education and more to do with revenue raising. </p>
<p>Tales of being forced to change grades, ignore incomprehensible English, pass plagiarised assignments and manage their own and students’ rising stress levels characterised the interviews.</p>
<p>It is apparent that corruption has seeped into every aspect of the higher education sector, from admissions all the way through to graduation. The information shared on Four Corners will no doubt come as a shock to the average family. For those of us in higher education, this isn’t news.</p>
<p>Rather than become despondent and accept the status quo, positive moves are afoot. ICAC has provided a list of “12 corruption prevention initiatives” to counter problems that have been</p>
<blockquote>
<p>created by a university’s reliance on revenues from international students who struggle to meet the academic standards of the university that recruited them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These revolve around relationships with partners and agents, marketing and financial strategies, risk, due diligence, accountability of international offices, governance strategies and admissions. </p>
<p>While no specific “initiative” was provided in relation to setting minimum English language requirements, this issue underpinned the whole report. It notes that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>of all the reasons cited to the Commission, low English-language proficiency was the most common basis given for international students engaging in academic misconduct. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is evident that universities ignore this fact at their peril.</p>
<p>Thirty years after entering foreign markets, the Australian higher education sector is beginning to recognise that a short-sighted and ill-planned grab for revenue has had long-reaching and potentially disastrous effects on academic standards, integrity and reputation. </p>
<p>ICAC has provided a number of useful recommendations. These make clear the responsibility of universities, not students, for rectifying these issues.</p>
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<p>Read more of The Conversation’s coverage of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/academic-dishonesty-in-australia">Academic dishonesty in Australia</a> here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracey Bretag is affiliated with the International Center for Academic Integrity, as the President of the Executive Board. Tracey Bretag has received funding from the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching for the Exemplary Academic Integrity Project and the Academic Integrity Standards Project.</span></em></p>A new report from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption says Australian universities have become increasingly reliant on income from fee-paying international students, and is letting academic standards slide for the valuable income stream.Tracey Bretag, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.