University Vice-Chancellors feast on junk degrees

Last year, a Senate inquiry into university governance heard claims that the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) was failing to monitor the standard of university degrees.

The assertion was made by a group of more than 200 ‘old-school’ academics known as Public Universities Australia, which claimed that universities are “soft marking” and passing most students regardless of the standards they have achieved, and that this is leading to a “dumbing down” of the nation.

The group warned of widespread plagiarism and use of AI among students and called for oral or supervised written exams to “determine what a student does in fact know and can do”.