tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/low-english-proficiency-16228/articleslow English proficiency – The Conversation2018-11-14T11:47:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1065002018-11-14T11:47:12Z2018-11-14T11:47:12ZA county in Idaho offered Spanish-language ballots for the first time and here’s what happened<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/un-condado-de-idaho-en-eeuu-ofrecio-papeletas-en-espanol-por-primera-vez-y-esto-es-lo-que-paso-106976">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p>On the morning of Election Day, the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/matters-donde-votar-spanish-vote-googles-top-search/story?id=59003457">top trending search on Google was “donde votar</a>,” which means “where to vote” in Spanish.</p>
<p>Voter access to the polls was a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45986329">major issue</a> during the 2018 midterm elections in the U.S. Charges of voter suppression were made in in Georgia and North Dakota. Critics of new voting rules claimed they disenfranchised African-Americans and Native Americans. </p>
<p>While those problems were extensively covered by the press, less attention was paid to another problem that can affect voter turnout: the availability of foreign-language ballots.</p>
<p>Lack of access to non-English ballots can be an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2647557">obstacle to voting for immigrants</a>. Simply put, if voters can’t understand the ballot, they may not vote.</p>
<p>That’s why the <a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/voting-rights/voting-rights-determination-file.html">Voting Rights Act</a> has protections for <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/page/file/927236/download">language minorities</a>, defined as “persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives, or of Spanish heritage.” The act requires local election officials to provide foreign-language election materials in regions that have a certain number of voters with limited English proficiency. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/11/04/28CFRPart55.pdf">Election materials</a> can include registration or voting notices, instructions and ballots.</p>
<p>After the 2016 election, the Census Bureau released a list of 263 jurisdictions in 29 states required to offer such <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/16/more-voters-will-have-access-to-non-english-ballots-in-the-next-election-cycle/">foreign-language election materials</a>. Those areas included close to 70 million voters with limited English who could vote in the 2018 election. For the first time, Idaho had a jurisdiction required to offer Spanish-language ballots. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://sps.boisestate.edu/ipi/gabe-osterhout/">researcher</a> at Boise State University’s Idaho Policy Institute where I study the impact of electoral policy on voter turnout and outcomes. I examined how this new requirement affected voter behavior on Election Day in Idaho. </p>
<p>While my findings seem to be an outlier in the larger context of election language assistance studies, the experience of one county may help broaden our understanding of the impact of foreign-language ballots as the <a href="https://www.idahostatejournal.com/members/growing-hispanic-population-part-of-idaho-s-history/article_f65db386-4315-11e5-b41e-e731d99a9f78.html">Hispanic population continues to grow</a> in Idaho and elsewhere.</p>
<h2>The curious case of Idaho</h2>
<p>Idaho has 80,000 Hispanic voters, 7 percent of Idaho’s <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/fact-sheet/latinos-in-the-2016-election-idaho/">eligible voter population</a>. Lincoln County is a small, rural area in southern Idaho. It has slightly more than <a href="http://www.statsamerica.org/USCP/">5,000 residents, including 1,600 Hispanics</a>, representing 30 percent of the county’s population. Among those that speak Spanish at home, <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml">60 percent do not speak English very well</a>. </p>
<p>I studied <a href="http://lincolncountyid.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov-2018-General-election-Unofficial-results-1.pdf">Lincoln County’s turnout</a> before and after the 2018 election to see if election language assistance affected voter behavior in the Latino community.</p>
<p>Compared to previous midterm elections, the county’s 68 percent turnout was higher than in <a href="https://sos.idaho.gov/elect/results/index.html">2014, 2010 and 2006</a>. However, this year’s elections also saw <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665197690/a-boatload-of-ballots-midterm-voter-turnout-hit-50-year-high">higher voter turnout</a> across Idaho and the United States, which makes it difficult to isolate the impact of Spanish-language ballots.</p>
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<p>To dig deeper, I compared voter turnout in Lincoln to three neighboring and demographically similar counties: Minidoka, Jerome and Gooding. The four counties all have Hispanic populations ranging from <a href="https://icha.idaho.gov/menus/idaho_counties.asp">29 percent to 34 percent of the population</a>. But unlike Lincoln, its neighboring counties were not required to offer Spanish-language ballots.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245470/original/file-20181114-194516-1bfp2ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Map showing the percentage increase in turnout in 2018 from the previous three midterm years in four counties in Idaho.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>I found that Lincoln County’s voter turnout didn’t increase in 2018 from the previous three midterms any more than its neighbors. </p>
<p>Turnout in Lincoln rose <a href="http://lincolncountyid.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov-2018-General-election-Unofficial-results-1.pdf">5.4 percent</a> compared to the previous three midterm elections, while <a href="https://www.jeromecountyid.us/DocumentCenter/View/496/General-Election-Results">Jerome</a> rose 5.6 percent, <a href="http://www.minidoka.id.us/DocumentCenter/View/430/Nov-6-2018-General-Unofficial-Abstract">Minidoka</a> rose 8.4 percent, and <a href="https://www.goodingcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/1071/NOV-6-2018-UNOFFICIAL-RESULTS0001">Gooding</a> rose 9.1 percent. These three counties had higher rates of increased voter turnout compared to recent midterms than Lincoln County did.</p>
<p>Does this mean that Spanish-language ballots don’t affect Hispanic election participation? From this case, it’s hard to tell. </p>
<p>Here’s what we know based on previous research.</p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>Counties that offered language assistance in previous elections have experienced increased minority participation. Since the Voting Rights Act was amended to include minority language assistance in 1975, <a href="https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/tfcl12&section=10">Hispanic voter registration doubled over the following 30 years</a>. Language assistance has a significant effect on voting turnout for minority groups, <a href="http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eoh&AN=0801553&site=ehost-live">especially for first-generation citizens</a>.</p>
<p>Other studies show that, despite helping increase voter turnout, election language assistance <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00302.x">does not help increase voter registration</a> for people who don’t speak English fluently. This is an important consideration since voter turnout compares the number of ballots cast to the number of registered voters, not the total population.</p>
<p>Overall, studies show that foreign-language assistance, and especially Spanish-language ballots, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23025122">make it easier for immigrant populations</a> to engage in the election process and have increased voter turnout among Hispanic citizens. </p>
<p>The turnout in Lincoln County, Idaho this year seems to be an outlier. This may be due to a few reasons. For one, the small sampling size of a sparsely populated county means that even minor changes in voting behavior can create erratic statistical swings. Further, with 2018 being Lincoln County’s first major election to offer Spanish ballots, we can only look at one data point. Its turnout numbers will become more reliable and significant as future elections take place and offer more data points. As the first bilingual election, it is also possible that some members of the community were not aware of the opportunity to vote in another language.</p>
<p>Lincoln County also has a significantly <a href="https://sos.idaho.gov/elect/VoterReg/2018/11/partybycounty.html">lower percentage of registered</a> Democratic voters compared to other regions in the country offering foreign-language ballots. This is important because turnout in 2018 was higher in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/09/04/643686875/democrats-2018-primary-turnout-mirrors-previous-wave-elections">liberal-leaning areas</a>.</p>
<p>There are likely other electoral factors at play that need more consideration, but these findings will perhaps prove helpful, as other Idaho counties <a href="https://www.idahopress.com/news/elections/county-poll-workers-can-assist-voters-in-spanish/article_f9120b0c-da3d-515c-854b-406d4ca39e59.html">will likely be required to offer</a> Spanish-language ballots after the next census as the state’s Hispanic population continues to grow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106500/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabe Osterhout does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Voting Rights Act offers language assistance for voters with limited English proficiency. What can we learn from an Idaho county’s experience offering foreign-language ballots?Gabe Osterhout, Research Associate, Idaho Policy Institute, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/984752018-06-19T20:12:55Z2018-06-19T20:12:55ZThe politicisation of English language proficiency, not poor English itself, creates barriers<p>The Australian government is considering yet <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-14/new-english-language-requirements-for-migrants-being-considered/9868756">another English language test</a> for migrants. The rationale for the proposal is the prospect “Australia will be home to one million people who do not speak English well or at all by 2021”, as Human Services Minister Alan Tudge <a href="http://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/alantudge/Pages/the-case-for-english.aspx">claimed</a>. </p>
<p>In particular, he suggests today’s migrants are less likely to know English than their counterparts in previous generations. His concern is this development suggests a looming crisis of social fragmentation into “parallel communities”. </p>
<p>While Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1001.0%7E2016-17%7EMain%20Features%7EThe%202016%20Census%20of%20Population%20and%20Housing%7E10009">data</a> show today’s migrants <em>are</em> less likely to know English, by the third generation they are typically monolingual in English.</p>
<h2>What does the ABS know about English proficiency?</h2>
<p>The ABS Population and Housing Census form asks people who speak a language other than English at home to state how well they speak English. Respondents can choose from four options: “very well”, “well”, “not well” or “not at all”. This form of determining English language proficiency is called <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X15000083">self-assessment</a> and is highly subjective. Bragging Bill may over-estimate his English proficiency while Humble Helen may under-estimate hers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-what-are-the-real-numbers-on-refugees-and-other-migrants-coming-to-australia-66912">FactCheck Q&A: what are the real numbers on refugees and other migrants coming to Australia?</a>
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<p>For reporting purposes, these four options are further condensed into two categories: “very well or well” and “not well or not at all”. This means when the government states the number of people “without English capability” has gone up, they’re referring to census respondents who self-rate their English as “not well or not at all”.</p>
<p>That number has been going up steadily from 2006 to 2016.</p>
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<h2>Does this mean fewer migrants are learning English?</h2>
<p>These are absolute numbers and they’re going up because Australia is admitting <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/reports-publications/research-statistics/statistics/live-in-australia/migration-programme">more and more migrants</a>. As overall migrant numbers increase, the proportion of the population who don’t have much English is also bound to increase. </p>
<p>To determine whether today’s migrants are less likely to speak English, we need to examine the proportion of those who self-rate as poor English speakers. Their proportion has remained more or less constant generation to generation. In fact, it has <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1001.0%7E2016-17%7EMain%20Features%7EThe%202016%20Census%20of%20Population%20and%20Housing%7E10009">declined</a> slightly from 2006 to 2016.</p>
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<h2>Patterns of language shift in migrant communities</h2>
<p>In other words, the vast majority of migrants in Australia who speak a language other than English are bilingual and speak English “very well or well”. Their bilingualism follows <a href="http://www.languageonthemove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Linguistic-Complexity-Macquarie-University-_-Coursera.pdf">a well-established pattern</a> of language shift in migrant communities. To understand that pattern, we need to compare the linguistic repertoires of different generations. </p>
<p>The first generation of migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds are dominant in their home language. In addition, most learn to speak English (very) well but, depending on age of arrival, prior education and a range of other factors, <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/07/challenge-of-adult-language-learning/">not all succeed</a>. </p>
<p>The second generation is still bilingual but the relationship between the two languages has shifted. Child migrants and the Australia-born children of migrants are dominant in English and their proficiency in the language other than English varies from minimal to highly proficient. </p>
<p>By the next generation, the language other than English has faded away. The third generation is typically monolingual in English.</p>
<p>This broad pattern holds across communities, not only in Australia but <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s9L9rpxD9FEC">also other immigrant-receiving societies</a>. The details differ, of course, and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Australia_s_Language_Potential.html?id=rhGpQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">some migrants may already shift to English</a> monolingualism in the first generation and others may make a special effort to maintain high-level bilingualism into the third generation and beyond.</p>
<h2>Does this lead to parallel communities?</h2>
<p>As long as the pattern described above holds, where the use of a language other than English combines with high levels of English proficiency, bilingualism <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2010.01747.x">is an asset</a> – for the individual as well as the wider community. Because bilingual individuals function in two worlds they connect rather than isolate communities.</p>
<p>There would be cause for concern if adults of the second generation did not speak English or did not speak it well. But, so far, we are not seeing that in Australia at all. The second generation <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Australia_s_Language_Potential.html?id=rhGpQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">is most likely English-dominant</a> and children with a migrant background <a href="http://www.oecd.org/education/the-resilience-of-students-with-an-immigrant-background-9789264292093-en.htm">academically outperform</a> those without. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-migrant-school-students-do-better-than-their-local-peers-theyre-not-just-smarter-93741">Why some migrant school students do better than their local peers (they're not 'just smarter')</a>
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<p>It’s not language we should be concerned about, but equality of opportunity. Where there’s no equality of opportunity, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/linguistic-diversity-and-social-justice-9780199937264?cc=au&lang=en&">English language proficiency isn’t sufficient</a> to overcome the barriers faced by disadvantaged and marginalised groups. </p>
<p>In societies characterised by stark social inequalities in the form of limited career opportunities, segregated housing or racist exclusion, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1177/10116370030463007">the danger of parallel communities developing is real</a> – regardless of the language spoken by the affected communities.</p>
<p>This means the increasingly frequent political panics about migrant English language proficiency do significant harm to our social fabric. By painting Australia’s multilingual communities into a corner, they create distrust, suspicion and alienation. Rather than building bridges between linguistically diverse communities, the politicisation of language proficiency erects barriers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingrid Piller receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Humboldt Foundation. </span></em></p>Concerns about non-English-speaking migrant populations leading to “parallel communities” are not well founded. Third-generation migrants are typically monolingual in English.Ingrid Piller, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/932192018-03-15T10:43:06Z2018-03-15T10:43:06ZWhy Britain must not set a deadline for everyone to speak English<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210305/original/file-20180314-113455-o6c9a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British government should <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43370514">fix a date</a> by which all residents in the UK should be able to speak English, says Louise Casey, who wrote a report for the government on integration in 2016. A common language, she argued, would help to “heal rifts across Britain”.</p>
<p>Casey first recommended that the government promote the English language in order to tackle isolation and segregation in her <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-casey-review-a-review-into-opportunity-and-integration">2016 report</a>. That recommendation received <a href="https://twitter.com/SayeedaWarsi/status/805399997210566656">support</a> even from people who otherwise <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/05/casey-report-criticised-for-focus-on-uk-muslim-communities">attacked the report</a> for its focus on the UK’s Muslim communities. </p>
<p>The recent call for action is part of her <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-43373577/dame-louise-casey-calls-for-action-on-community-cohesion">wider criticism</a> of the government for delaying the improvement of community cohesion. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government only published its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/integrated-communities-strategy-green-paper">new integrated communities strategy green paper</a> on March 14, more than a year after Casey’s review appeared. Boosting English language skills is one of its key aims.</p>
<p>Casey’s call for a target date by when “everybody in the country” should speak English is a piece of deliberately provocative rhetoric. It’s easy to see how trying to implement her idea would have many problems in practice. When would that deadline be? What would qualify as sufficient and acceptable knowledge of English? How would that be tested? Who would be subject to a test and how would they be identified? What would happen to someone who does not meet the requirement? Is it possible to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3993492/Immigrants-forced-speak-English-help-integrate-government-ordered-review-set-advise-ministers.html">force</a> someone to speak a language they do not? </p>
<p>The 2011 census <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/language/articles/languageinenglandandwales/2013-03-04#proficiency-in-english">showed</a> that, of the 4.2m people who have a main language other than English in England and Wales, only 1.3%, or 726,000, of the population reported that they could not speak English well. An even smaller percentage, 0.3% or 138,000, reported that they could not speak English at all. </p>
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<h2>Britain has always been a multilingual country</h2>
<p>The current debate shows a blatant disregard for the facts about the UK’s languages and the people who speak them. It promotes the view that having many languages is a problem, and exposes speakers of other languages to potential discrimination and even abuse.</p>
<p>But there hasn’t been a single moment in history when Britain was monolingual. The 2011 census <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/language/articles/languageinenglandandwales/2013-03-04">identified</a> at least 104 languages other than English spoken in England and Wales by 4.2m people – 7.7% of the total population. <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/qss/dqsswp/1012.html">Other sources</a> put that number at 300. </p>
<p>These languages are spoken by both British and non-British people. Some, such as Lithuanian and Romanian, were brought over to the UK recently as part of the expansion of the EU. Others, such as Punjabi, Urdu and Bengali, were transplanted from parts of the former British Empire much earlier, in the 19th and 20th centuries. And there are also Britain’s indigenous languages (Angloromani, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Shelta, Welsh) that have been continuously spoken in the UK for many centuries, some of them since before the arrival of English. Multilingualism is part of this country’s past, its present and its future. </p>
<p>It has been repeatedly shown that speaking many languages has multiple benefits, not only for the personal well-being of multilingual speakers but also for the overall well-being of <a href="https://www.britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Multilingual%20Britain%20Report.pdf">society in general</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-in-tongues-the-many-benefits-of-bilingualism-49842">Speaking in tongues: the many benefits of bilingualism</a>
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<p>The UK’s languages are of great significance to their speakers, who view them as symbols of their identity. Marios, a 51-year-old British-born Greek Cypriot, who I spoke to as part of <a href="https://www.westminster.ac.uk/english-language-and-linguistics/research-themes/cypriot-greek-as-a-heritage-or-community-language-in-london-and-the-uk">my current research</a> on Cypriot Greek as a heritage and community language in London, told me: </p>
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<p>I like speaking my language. I do not want to lose the Greek language because I think that, if I lose the language, I will not be Cypriot anymore.</p>
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<p>Languages are also important for the UK’s minority ethnic communities on a collective level. They are points of reference to their histories as migrant groups or as indigenous populations of Britain. We should strive to protect and respect the symbolic value of multilingualism like we do with all other aspects of people’s identities.</p>
<h2>Everyday discrimination</h2>
<p>The notion that everyone in a given country must speak only one language is not only misguided, it is also potentially dangerous as it can motivate acts of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/English-with-an-Accent-Language-Ideology-and-Discrimination-in-the-United/Lippi-Green/p/book/9780415559119">discrimination</a> and even <a href="http://www.irr.org.uk/app/uploads/2016/11/Racial-violence-and-the-Brexit-state-final.pdf">abuse</a>. It’s not uncommon to read news stories about people who have been singled out for speaking a language other than English <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/woman-speaking-welsh-to-her-child-told-speak-english-not-foreign-muck_uk_59b67503e4b0b5e531076cbc">in public</a> or who have been told not to speak their native language at their <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2823575/Polish-workers-Lidl-told-stop-speaking-native-language-sacked.html">workplace</a>, especially after the Brexit referendum and the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hate-crimes-eu-referendum-spike-brexit-terror-attacks-police-home-office-europeans-xenophobia-a8004716.html">increase in racially-motivated hate crimes in the UK</a>. It’s a matter of social justice and responsibility to make sure that these behaviours do not find any sort of ideological support in public discourse.</p>
<p>Of course, speaking English affords people the possibility to harness the opportunities that life in the UK offers in a more direct and easy way. But there is also value in other languages as resources, skills, expressions of individual and community identity. Associating multilingualism with a lack of English and painting that association as a problem, and especially a problem much bigger than it actually is, is ill-informed and has potentially damaging implications for society cohesion and intercommunal understanding. </p>
<p>Setting a deadline by which everyone in the UK should speak English is impossible and would send the wrong messages about who we are as a country to people in Britain, both those who speak other languages and those who do not, and to the rest of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Petros Karatsareas receives funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>It would diminsh the value of Britain’s multilingualism, promote a monolingual ideology and discriminate against speakers of other languages.Petros Karatsareas, Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/451152015-07-28T04:24:31Z2015-07-28T04:24:31ZWe need to remember why we teach and learn languages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89482/original/image-20150723-22821-1xll286.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amid the debate about what languages should dominate at African schools, we're missing an important point: why do we learn language in the first place?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is an ongoing <a href="http://www.britishcouncil.org/blog/how-should-africa-teach-multilingual-children">debate across Africa</a> about the ideal language of instruction in education. This tends to centre on whether children should be taught in their home languages or in languages that are more widely spoken and are considered more universally “useful”. </p>
<p>In many countries, former colonial <a href="http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/teachers/curriculum/m8/map2.php">languages</a> like French, English or Portuguese have been adopted as the language of instruction in schools. There is <a href="http://www0.sun.ac.za/taalsentrum/assets/files/ML%20Afr%20Lang%20&%20Cost.pdf">growing evidence</a> that this policy may not be in the best interests of African societies in general.</p>
<p>A fundamental question is being ignored in this debate: what is the purpose of teaching and learning languages in the first place? Quite simply, there are two functions of language – communication and access to knowledge. Each must be pursued as an objective in its own right rather than being lumped together.</p>
<h2>How languages are applied</h2>
<p>There is a strong case to be made for simply adopting a colonial language as the medium of instruction in African schools. These languages tend to be more widely spoken worldwide and could, as such, be considered more useful in the long run.</p>
<p>Some commentators have argued that there is another value inherent in becoming fluent in a world language like English or French. They say that a child will, through proficiency in one of these universal languages, also acquire useful knowledge in a subject such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-south-africa-science-should-be-taught-in-only-one-language-how-about-english-43733">physical science</a>, which has a very specific vocabulary. Common English words like “decay”, “cleavage” and “fault” all appear in physical science textbooks, although they take on different meanings in a scientific context.</p>
<p>By this logic, we can say that natural sciences, human sciences and arts like music each employs a “language” involving a very specific terminology. A word such as “interval” in music, for instance, has a totally different <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/musical+interval">meaning</a> from the general interpretation.</p>
<p>If we follow this line of reasoning, a major objective why children should be taught in a universal language is to improve their understanding of content in other subjects. </p>
<p>But this takes us back to the two distinct functions of communication and access to knowledge. If we apply a linguistic lens to the problem, we will find that language is ideally learned for its own sake, as an effective medium of communication. It is not – and should not be – learned for the purpose of coming to grips with subject content at the same time.</p>
<h2>What makes a language?</h2>
<p>It is incorrect to suggest that the use of subject-specific terminology constitutes an entirely different language. In reality <a href="http://ielanguages.com/linguist.html">the lexicon</a> – or content vocabulary – of a language is only the observable part of the communication system that we call language. You also need to come to grips with the grammar of a language: its rules, structure, syntax and semantics.</p>
<p>In Africa, colonial languages have been used in schools simultaneously as a medium of communication and as a way to internalise subject content. This mingling of objectives has actually put generations of African children at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Research conducted by the German-African Network of Alumni and Alumnae in Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Africa has proved this disadvantage. In <a href="http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departments/linguistics/documents/SPILPLUS38-Bationo.pdf">Burkina Faso</a>, graduates from community schools who learned in the local home language outclassed their peers from French language government schools. </p>
<p>In Zambia, learners who studied in their home languages for all subjects apart from English <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001466/146659e.pdf">outperformed</a> their peers who learned all subjects in English. </p>
<p>In both these cases, the distinct objectives of language were kept separate. Children learned French and English, respectively, merely for the purpose of mastering the language. It wasn’t used to improve their knowledge of other subject content, and this is why learners were so successful.</p>
<h2>The aim should be language proficiency</h2>
<p>On a personal note: I obtained my PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand - not in English. I have published some 52 articles and (in) 43 books. Many of these are in English, but others are in “international” languages like French, German, Dutch and Japanese. </p>
<p>The transfer of content vocabulary from my own language to English and other languages was largely facilitated by two things: a cognitive basis of the grammar of the language in which I grew up, and an effective training in English as a subject. This training was not confined to the vocabulary or terminology of any particular subject like physics, mathematics or linguistics. Instead, it was aimed at developing proficiency in the language as a whole.</p>
<p>In deciding how to deal with language in education, we should keep our objectives clear and concentrate on what is attainable. To confine the aim of language proficiency to the access of knowledge in one field would be defeating the purpose and confusing two separate objectives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernst Frederick Kotzé receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>There are two functions of language: communication and access to knowledge. Each must be pursued as an objective in its own right rather than being lumped together.Ernst Frederick Kotzé, Professor emeritus Applied Language Studies, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed 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>
<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/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.