‘Google Translate, fractured English’: The sandstone unis accused of dropping academic standards

Top universities have been accused of lowering academic and English standards in once-prestigious master’s degrees as postgraduate courses at sandstone institutions become increasingly dominated by international students.

Popular postgraduate business, engineering and media subjects at Sydney and Melbourne universities and UNSW can have more than 90 per cent foreign enrolments, mostly from China, with the few local students often unaware the courses were largely targeted at international students.

Universities have been accused of compromising standards to accommodate for an influx of foreign students in postgraduate degrees. Credit: Stephen Kiprillis

In a formal complaint sent to Melbourne University and seen by this masthead, a domestic master’s student in the arts faculty said teachers used the most basic English possible so as not to alienate most of the class.

It said subjects had well over 90 per cent international students, predominantly from China, and class activities took place in fractured English, frequently flipping back to Mandarin, and pupils often used real-time translation devices.

“The result for domestic students is to not only take a tacit leadership role in group activities to repeat instructions and clarify, but to actively translate activities and assignments,” it read.

“When every class has a majority of international students, with coursework designed to discuss, collaborate and co-operate – the lack of English skills create a real impediment to learning. For everyone.”

The student was unaware they would be one of a handful of locals among hundreds of students when they signed up, and believed that lenient English admission standards left international students feeling overwhelmed and inadequate.

At Sydney University, about 68 per cent of postgraduate students are international, compared with about 38 per cent of undergraduates. Nearly 90 per cent of postgraduates in the business school and 83 per cent in engineering are international. Only 15 per cent of postgraduate enrolments in medicine and health are international.

Data tabled to parliament show some of the most popular master’s degrees at the university for Chinese students include commerce (4140 Chinese enrolments), media practice (616), economics (983) and project management (981).

At UNSW, 75 per cent of postgraduate students are international, compared with about 30 per cent of undergraduates. Both UNSW and Sydney University’s vice chancellors told a recent parliamentary inquiry they aimed to maintain a lower percentage of international students in undergraduate programs, which represent students’ first university experience.

More than 45 per cent of Melbourne University’s total cohort are international students, but the institution would not reveal the proportion of domestic postgraduate students or any breakdown by faculty.

The universities require foreign students from non-English-speaking countries to achieve a minimum International English Language Testing System (IELTS) score of 6.5, with some programs necessitating higher scores. A band six score indicates a “competent” command of the language, despite some inaccuracies.

Mohan Dhall, a university academic and Australian Tutoring Association chief executive, said the documentation required to prove English proficiency could not be relied on and suggested a regulator-administered test should be introduced instead.

He said students with documentation showing they had a degree and proficient English could often not perform at this level in class.

“So something is going seriously wrong somewhere,” Dhall said.

Dhall said academics often had to change their teaching to accommodate students with lower levels of English than expected, pointing to depleted academic standards.

Associate professor Gwilym Croucher, a higher education expert at Melbourne University, said people often assumed that a high concentration in a class from one source country was problematic.

“The challenge is that we don’t have reliable evidence about the ways in which cohort mix can impact educational experience,” he said.

Australian institutions are not alone in being accused of compromising academic standards in the face of increasing foreign enrolments.

In August, two academics from the prestigious Russell Group, including Oxford and Cambridge, wrote an anonymous article for the Higher Education Policy Institute warning that master’s-level teaching was suffering due to students lacking the English skills needed for meaningful discussions.

“A master’s seminar typically has three-quarters of students from a single country, a few international students from elsewhere, and one or two local students,” it read.

Former immigration department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi said that Group of Eight universities had traditionally had high numbers of postgraduate business students, despite the lack of migration pathways, and questioned the quality of “international education” provided if universities predominantly enrolled students from one region.

“I’m no [teaching] expert,” he said, “but having classes mostly made up of students from one country is a problem.”

Sydney University deputy vice chancellor Professor Joanne Wright said the university’s high academic standards applied equally to all students, and the institution provided targeted support to help international students thrive.

A UNSW spokeswoman said it had a diverse student population from a wide range of backgrounds where English was not the native language and all classes and assessments were completed in English.

Melbourne University said: “Students benefit from learning alongside students from different backgrounds, which creates an enriching environment.”

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