The more I look at it, the more it seems Australia’s higher education system is busted.
Rather than focusing on delivering the best possible education to students, in turn boosting the productivity and competitiveness of the Australian economy, higher education has turned into one giant “degree/diploma factory” whereby providers sell as many courses as they can to both domestic and foreign students, with the latter also enticed by the carrot of permanent residency.
Over the past year or so, a series of reports have emerged highlighting these concerns in greater detail. For example, Fairfax has previously reported that international student colleges have taken cash kickbacks in return for helping overseas workers and students win Australian visas using fake qualifications. The ABC made similar reports.
Four Corners has also previously uncovered international education university cheating and plagiarism rorts.
Back in October, The Australian released three articles (here, here and here) uncovering widespread rorting by private colleges. The Australian revealed that private colleges were handed more than $1.4 billion in government-funded VET Fee -Help loans last year, which was four times as much as was provided to public vocational education and training providers. Yet, only 14,400 students managed to complete courses at private colleges last year, compared with 18,400 students at TAFE and other public providers. Thus, the figures reveal that private colleges are inflating course costs but providing very poor educational outcomes.
Then last month, The Australian revealed that Australian taxpayers have paid over $1 billion to 15 private colleges this year – colleges that have been found to be in breach of government regulations.
Fairfax also reported last month how some in the “vocational education sales industry” are targeting poor areas, providing them with “free” laptops if they sign-up to an expensive online diploma course. In the process, the education providers have pocketed thousands of dollars in fees for students that will in all likelihood never finish their courses, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.
Then on Wednesday, Fairfax revealed further rorting in the vocational education space, with the Australian Institute of Professional Education (AIPE) receiving almost $1 million per graduate from taxpayers last year.
Today, Fairfax has uncovered more dubious behaviour, with a lecturer from Port Melbourne outsourcing his academic marking through a global freelance website called Elance, in turn breaching student privacy rules:
The lecturer, who refers to himself as “David”, has paid $600 to a Brisbane-based media business, PrintBiz Media, for the marking of 140 3000-word assignments.
He provided a marking guide, or “rubric”, and an assignment overview, and broke nearly every rule in the book on student privacy by offering to supply a “complete list of students” to the marker…
The media business chosen to advertise for the marking job, Elance, specialises in copy writing, marketing, social media services, website design and academic writing, but it has no apparent skills or qualifications in teaching or marking, according to its website…
A recent NTEU [National Tertiary Education Union] report showed more than half of academics are working more than 50 hours a week.
“Universities have massively increased their number of students without any equivalent increase in staff,” Ms Rea said.
“That people would try to find ways around their situation doesn’t surprise me. I hope they wouldn’t do it, as it is a breach of their students’ privacy …”
Unfortunately, this kind of behaviour is what happens when you turn Australia’s universities and colleges into “degree/diploma factories” that are designed to sell as many courses as possible for maximum profit. Standards will inevitably drop, as we are seeing across Australia.
Those that I have met involved in teaching/lecturing have often complained that they are unable to fail students for fear that it will lead to a backlash, resulting in less ‘sales’ of degrees/diplomas in the future. In turn, they believe that education standards and the value of higher education are getting watered down, with obvious repercussions for future productivity.
And therein lies the dilemma facing higher education in Australia: how to maintain education standards at the same time as maximising sales and profits. Unfortunately, the two seem to be mutually exclusive.
