Claims university and polytechnic academics are coming under increasing pressure from their managers to pass students are concerning.
This week the tertiary education union said results of a survey completed by 1006 (of its some 10,000) members showed 63% reported coming under more pressure in the past decade to relax standards and pass more students. Members said such pressure involved manipulating assessments for the better, turning a blind eye to cheating, and passing students whose results were below 50%. Some had reported students’ grades had been upgraded by administrative staff.
Survey respondents and union heads said they were being pressured to do so because tertiary organisations had to meet targets (sometimes to pass 85% of students) in order to secure government funding. They claimed minimum entry level requirements were being ignored as institutions sought to increase student rolls to secure funding, and international students were given more leeway. Some said student pass rates were tied to the performance reviews of academics.
Although the union is clearly concerned, and similar stories from academics continue to emerge, the chairman of Universities New Zealand, Auckland University vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon, disputes the claims and is adamant the problem is not widespread.
Clearly, with only 10% of the union’s membership responding to the survey, there is no way to know the extent of the problem. However, there is still reason to be concerned. If pressure has been successfully exerted in one place, momentum can grow. An erosion of education standards would not only affect the reputation of individual providers, but our international reputation, too. If pressure has been exerted for short-term financial gain, it is surely self-defeating in the long term. Given the range of tertiary education providers, a review of the issue would be prudent, and it is reassuring the Qualifications Authority is now urging those with concerns about tertiary practices to come forward so it can investigate.
It would be naive to think tertiary education providers and individual staff are not at risk from pressure. Wherever there is big money to be made, there are big incentives for public- and private-sector funders and lobbyists to exert pressure, which can be hard to counter. New Zealand’s international education industry alone is worth more than $4billion, according to a 2016 Education NZ-commissioned report — and the Government’s target is for $5billion by 2025. A 2016 NZ Institute of Economic Research report shows the university sector’s domestic revenue alone was $3.2billion (about 1% of GDP) in 2014.
As publicly-funded organisations work to a private-sector profit-driven model, lines and agendas can become blurred. A stronger focus on "targets" and "outcomes" which are tied to funding can only up the ante on results. Academics have said they have faced increased pressure in various areas for years. For more than a decade tertiary funding has been tied to research and publication. Some claim such research is not always valuable as high-risk useful work that might be harder to get published is likely not to be undertaken. (Scientists, for example, have spoken out previously about the potential difficulties faced when their research is funded by the private sector — and the difficulties even when their work is publicly funded).
There is, rightly an expectation that, when public money is at stake, accountability is desirable. Measurable outcomes most readily take the form of publications and pass rates. It is far harder to measure the quality of teaching and learning and research. Yet it is surely vital to remember and appreciate the social value of those things beyond the grab for students and their dollars.
