Last year, Dr Gerd Schroeder-Turk – Murdoch University’s only academic representative on the Senate (the University’s highest governing body) – appeared on ABC’s Four Corners and criticised Murdoch’s international student entry and teaching standards, which drove a 92% surge in international students numbers between 2017 and 2018.
Dr Schroeder-Turk’s claims were corroborated by two other Murdoch academics who also appeared on Four Corners.
In response to these claims, Murdoch University’s top brass attempted to kick Dr Schroeder-Turk off the Senate and then tried to sue him for millions of dollars for allegedly causing a sharp decline in international student enrollments.
However, following an international backlash and facing almost certain failure, Murdoch dropped their law suit in January.
Last week, Dr Gerd Schroeder-Turk’s claim that Murdoch University’s standards had plummeted received implicit support from Australia’s employers, who ranked Murdoch graduates last on satisfaction ratings:
The survey results released on Friday found Murdoch University was the lowest ranked university in Australia in terms of employer satisfaction with graduates at 76.2 per cent…
The survey, funded by the federal government, looked at the quality of education provided at Australian institutions by asking the employers of new graduates about the generic skills, technical skills and work readiness of the graduate…
The 2019 Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching Employer Satisfaction Survey results combined data gathered from 2017, 2018 and 2019 and gathered the views of 4689 employers about the attributes of recent graduates.
The Department of Home Affairs also recently raised Murdoch University’s immigration risk-rating to 3 – the worst possible rating – reflecting its marked decline in quality:
Murdoch is one of only two Australian universities with a level 3 risk rating. This means that to obtain visas to study at Murdoch, people from countries considered to represent even a moderate immigration risk must supply extra evidence of their financial capacity and language ability…
Home Affairs risk ratings are based purely on immigration metrics such as rates of unsuccessful and fraudulent visa applications and students overstaying their visas. “Media coverage does not influence a provider’s immigration risk rating,” the department told Times Higher Education.
Clearly, Dr Gerd Schroeder-Turk was justified in sounding the alarm on Four Corners and has since been vindicated.
