Essay writing service use rife at unis (1 Viewer)

Rafy

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http://www.smh.com.au/national/educ...dents-and-their-cheating-20141112-11lbdi.html

Whistleblowing academics have accused their universities of contributing to systemic cheating by welcoming international students who are "functionally illiterate" because they rely so heavily on their fees.

Some academics claim they have urged their university leaders to raise the English proficiency requirements but their concerns have been largely ignored because they are at odds with financial imperatives.
 

callipygian

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Some academics claim they have urged their university leaders to raise the English proficiency requirements but their concerns have been largely ignored because they are at odds with financial imperatives.
True but in that sense the issue is that universities aren't receiving enough funding, and we all know where that argument goes.

Lecturers do have their ways of getting around the cheating; they'll set oral exams or exams that you have to go in for. Probably the worst thing is that most of these students would have passed anyway, because - especially at postgrad level - lecturers are incredibly reluctant to fail someone.
 

OzKo

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I always wondered how some of those international students got their degrees.

I think we've all been in the situation of having to do group work with an international student. On most occasions the work they produce is utter crap, yet they somehow manage to pass their units and graduate.

Very suss and universities really need to crack down. Cheating should be quite obvious to a tutor/lecturer when they are marking a very well written essay produced by an ESL international student who can barely string 2 words together in tutes.

But we all know unis dont want to upset the milking of the cash cow.
I would be weary of making that assumption.

Traditionally, it is much easier to read and write in English compared to speaking in English (because you have time to think I guess). This is due to the way English is usually taught overseas, especially in East Asia. You have many students who do not have the opportunity to actually talk to other people in English (teachers are complacent in this area, unless they come from an English-speaking country) so the pressure does get to them.

That being said, the English requirements for university entry should definitely be reviewed.
 

obliviousninja

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Yea ive noticed how they struggle to articulate themselves when asked a question in class or have to present
 

Kiraken

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talking from the perspective of health which is mentioned in that article, a lot of unis do assess their students based on their time on the wards, practical skills etc. and how they interact with patients. I agree it's a great way of truly assessing their abilities but what you find is that it
s very difficult to maintain an objective standard for marking this.

I'm not saying that the idea should be instantly dismissed, more that they need to find ways of assessing students that incorporate both an assessment of their true abilities as well as allowing for some objective standard of measurement to see where they are at, otherwise in the example I gave above, your marks can become less dependent on your ability and more dependent on how nice/dickheaded/lazy/dedicated your supervisor or marker is.
 

isildurrrr1

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Yea ive noticed how they struggle to articulate themselves when asked a question in class or have to present
Don't forget a lot of asians have fear of embarrassment or failure. If you go to an english class taught in HS overseas, most kids are really afraid to make any mistakes in speaking so they rarely speak at all. A lot of the grammar stuff they learn is completely wrong too.

The English requirements is where it should be, however there are "ghost writers" for people taking IELTs exams on behalf of students. That's more of a major issue than anything else. Uni's should have their own language proficiency tests on top of IELTs, especially for students from china due to the amount of fraud. If they bitch about discrimination well guess what, Aus gov does the same thing with visas, process is different based on risk of fraud.
 

Rafy

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Speed6

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Re: Uni assignment service got bursted

This shit is ridiculous.
 

Ethicks

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Mostly International Asian students, about time they got caught.
 
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