How many anti immigrant articles can the times put out per day jesus christ!
Being in a university is about a life changing education, not buying a product.
To be fair I have seen foreign students with little to no English and wondered how tf are they making it through
This doesn’t only apply to foreign students, I got a 1.1 in my degree when I know in my heart the quality of the work was 2.1 at best, and that’s because there was a shitload of students getting third rate passes who really shouldn’t have been passing at all.
Yup.
I remember when I was hosting labs during my PhD. A second year foreign student couldn’t do a simultaneous equation with two unknowns after trying for 45 minutes while I told him in every possible way how to solve it (everyone else did it trivially). This is something that is taught in secondary school.
At the end I told him that if he wanted to succeed he’d have to relearn fundamental mathematics because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to handle harder topics. I graded him 1/10 or something as he did virtually nothing.
In response he threw a hissy fit and then put in a complaint about me. His score was raised to a passing mark (5-6 / 10) and I was told that we’re not allowed to let students fail because of the money they bring in.
We knew this, surely. It’s like one of those open secrets.
Ireland isn’t unique in this regard but it’s pathetic all the same.
It’s going to get a lot harder to spot with chat gpt.
I’m convinced that the move to continuous assessment and away from exams was not for fairness to students but to disguise cheating and allow such students to buy assignments and projects and submit them as their own.
It’s all about the money huh. Not about investing into potential workers / professionals
Same for local students as well, although the financial pressure isn’t as pronounced.
There’s constant pressure to pass students who really shouldn’t, and to make allowances for far too many situations – of course there are plenty of cases that do need a lighter touch, but there are also many that should have just failed and have been better trying something else.
Privates are notorious for it, letting students have a crack at an assignment over and over again and asking lecturers to “recheck” a failed assignment or allow a repeat/late submissions, but the issue isn’t limited to them.
We are increasingly corporatising education and it’s not a good road to go down. They should not be run for profit or like a business.
Same with two Nigerian people I work with. One Computer Science Masters and the second one with Masters in Journalism. Both can’t really speak or write proper English. I was wondering what’s the story with that…
Protip – domestic students always pass also and they’re not magically smarter.
This isn’t new. I once interviewed for a position at Tralee IT to teach physics. Apparently the program there was largely a 2 year cert that somehow would get you into a medicine course. It was full of wealthy Saudi and Emirati students. I was explicitly told this *during the interview*.
In the interview they asked me if I would give a student a failing grade. I told them that I would of course try to help the student but if they objectively failed an exam it would be important to maintain a standard. A friend of mine with an identical qualification but slightly worse grades across the board got asked the same question and he said he would work with the college to see what could be done. He got called back and I didn’t.
There could be numerous other reasons as to why my friend did better than me in the interview but more than half of the time was spent discussing that question. That was 15 years ago but it always stuck in my mind.
This is complete BS. Using “discretion” over grading because it’s profitable. Would a local student get the same leeway? Grounds for discrimination technically.
It’s like the covid grade inflation for the leaving cert. Keep things like this up and soon grades mean absolutely nothing
15 comments
How many anti immigrant articles can the times put out per day jesus christ!
Being in a university is about a life changing education, not buying a product.
To be fair I have seen foreign students with little to no English and wondered how tf are they making it through
This doesn’t only apply to foreign students, I got a 1.1 in my degree when I know in my heart the quality of the work was 2.1 at best, and that’s because there was a shitload of students getting third rate passes who really shouldn’t have been passing at all.
Yup.
I remember when I was hosting labs during my PhD. A second year foreign student couldn’t do a simultaneous equation with two unknowns after trying for 45 minutes while I told him in every possible way how to solve it (everyone else did it trivially). This is something that is taught in secondary school.
At the end I told him that if he wanted to succeed he’d have to relearn fundamental mathematics because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to handle harder topics. I graded him 1/10 or something as he did virtually nothing.
In response he threw a hissy fit and then put in a complaint about me. His score was raised to a passing mark (5-6 / 10) and I was told that we’re not allowed to let students fail because of the money they bring in.
We knew this, surely. It’s like one of those open secrets.
Ireland isn’t unique in this regard but it’s pathetic all the same.
It’s going to get a lot harder to spot with chat gpt.
I’m convinced that the move to continuous assessment and away from exams was not for fairness to students but to disguise cheating and allow such students to buy assignments and projects and submit them as their own.
It’s all about the money huh. Not about investing into potential workers / professionals
Same for local students as well, although the financial pressure isn’t as pronounced.
There’s constant pressure to pass students who really shouldn’t, and to make allowances for far too many situations – of course there are plenty of cases that do need a lighter touch, but there are also many that should have just failed and have been better trying something else.
Privates are notorious for it, letting students have a crack at an assignment over and over again and asking lecturers to “recheck” a failed assignment or allow a repeat/late submissions, but the issue isn’t limited to them.
We are increasingly corporatising education and it’s not a good road to go down. They should not be run for profit or like a business.
Same with two Nigerian people I work with. One Computer Science Masters and the second one with Masters in Journalism. Both can’t really speak or write proper English. I was wondering what’s the story with that…
Protip – domestic students always pass also and they’re not magically smarter.
This isn’t new. I once interviewed for a position at Tralee IT to teach physics. Apparently the program there was largely a 2 year cert that somehow would get you into a medicine course. It was full of wealthy Saudi and Emirati students. I was explicitly told this *during the interview*.
In the interview they asked me if I would give a student a failing grade. I told them that I would of course try to help the student but if they objectively failed an exam it would be important to maintain a standard. A friend of mine with an identical qualification but slightly worse grades across the board got asked the same question and he said he would work with the college to see what could be done. He got called back and I didn’t.
There could be numerous other reasons as to why my friend did better than me in the interview but more than half of the time was spent discussing that question. That was 15 years ago but it always stuck in my mind.
This is complete BS. Using “discretion” over grading because it’s profitable. Would a local student get the same leeway? Grounds for discrimination technically.
It’s like the covid grade inflation for the leaving cert. Keep things like this up and soon grades mean absolutely nothing