Uni and foreign students would you say anything?

[thebraispink]

My DD is at uni doing a creative subject and basically she is having to help and support all of the foreign students with their work.

The uni have taken on so so many students who don't speak English over 60% of her course and put no translators in place, so my DD is having to help explain everything to those poor students who have broken English at best.

The uni has literally just taken all the money, it's making my DD course really dumbed down and keeping her back, it's not great for the foreign students as they are pretty out of their depth and miserable.

From my stance we are paying a shit ton for this course, and its teaching is poor and the overall experience is a bit shit.

All of these students will leave after 3 years, and take this education to their countries which is great but it leaves the UK students with a sub standard experience and shitty degree.

Should there be a limits on how many students can be from overseas? Should the uni have to provide interpreters? Is anyone else's kids in the same situation?

We are considering moving her from the uni on these grounds as she spends more time helping her peers than she does being taught.

She needs to speak to her lecturers, ask for additional work. Explain what is happening and how it impacts her. So so all the English mother tongue students.
she could limit the amount of help she provides. She isn’t a lecturer.

Seems mad that unis take on foreign students who don’t have a good enough grasp of English for the course.

I’m very surprised about this as the mother of 4 children who were foreign students in 3 countries including the UK. They had to have very good English as did their classmates who studied abroad with them. They had to have TEOFL or IELTS qualifications as well as a certain standard of English for their visa. By the time the went to Uni they’d had 12 years of English as a second language and were all fluent.

Most courses taking on Intl students state a minimum standard of English and T&C’s clearly state that all teaching is done is English and materials are provided in English, so interpreting services should not be required. Universities should be checking that students meet the minimum standard of language before they enrol, both for the sake of the student and for everyone else (other students and staff).

As kind as it is, your DD is not obliged to help the students with their language difficulties. Especially if it means she is behind in her own work. If she has complaints re the standard of the teaching or the student mix, she should speak to student services. Unfortunately, a lot of universities have had to increase the no of intl student places since the changes to university funding. Intl students pay around 4x more than domestic students, so it’s a huge source of revenue for universities and much needed since the government cut their funding.

This really, she needs to speak up and talk to someone about it. I presume she is not obligated to spend her time translating.

All of these students will leave after 3 years, and take this education to their countries which is great but it leaves the UK students with a sub standard experience and shitty degree.

This is a bit patronising, where I live anyway foreign students pay more, so those students would be paying more than your daughter for a shitty degree. This isn't a charity partnership where these students should be grateful for bringing a 'shitty degree' back to their homeland, they also deserve better.

She is being asked or told, as are her peers to help and support the foreign students. They are being put in groups and projects where they are mixed and told to support.

So she really isn't given much choice.

The crux is the students can't speak or understand English so the uni clearly hasn't checked, most of the students are from China and just talk amongst themselves in lessons and when asked to present or show work and explain anything they just refuse or say no.

I'll get her to raise the issues and refuse to help maybe?

Also sorry didn't mean to sound patronising, it's clearly a tricky topic as I'm essentially saying her education is being trashed by in influx of foreign money.

This from the first Uni when I googled.

https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/international/admissions/language-requirements/

I’m taking the Op with a pinch of salt based on my life experience and the English language requirements set out in the above link.

I work in a university and all international students we take in must have a high standard of English and qualifications to prove this. Some are also given an English test as part of their entry requirements. This is pretty standard.

I find it hard to believe that over 60% of the students don't speak English. It may be the case that 60% are international but they will speak English.

The international students pay a lot more to study in the UK and (not to generalise) but are usually very, conscientious and hard working and perform very well across the board in all subjects.

But if this is the case then the students who are supporting the international students really need to raise this higher.

It won't be the case that the course is being dumbed down, again universities are regulated and assessments are also externally marked and if it was the case that a university was significantly dumbing down it would be found out, so I don't think you need to worry to much about the quality of your DDs degree.

She needs to kick up a fuss. Ask to move groups or do the work on her own, not in a group. Does she have a personal tutor she can talk to?

Thank you I'll look this up and ask dd to check this has been followed.

I'm not sure what we can do about it if it hasn't been followed maybe other than flagging the standards are a bit rubbish.

My DD is having the same issue, has to do a group project with a student who has poor written english and unable to understand what is being asked of them. I feel sorry for the foreign student but it's unfair on those in project group.

Why would I waste my time making this up?

It’s usually a minimum of IELTS 5.5. Speaking and writing English is no problem at that level.

It’s very normal for international students from culturally similar backgrounds with a shared native language to stick together.

If she's finding the delivery of her course unsatisfactory she needs to deal with it.

It's all money money money. Foreign students are a cash cow. Took DD to a uni open day recently, was looking at the students work on display. I reckon a good 30% of the names were Chinese so that tells you where the money is. A can't remember from the prospectus how much the tuition fees were exactly but it was around the £30k pa mark.

My degree was 50pc Japanese students and the level of English was low. We certainly weren't asked to support them lingually tho.

How is your daughter and the other students supporting them if they speak no English? Can your daughter speak mandarin? Otherwise it seems like it's not really support.

If group work is an issue (and in my 20 years working in a university, group work is always an issue) then that can be raised and the students who do participate will be marked higher than those who don't. Similarity if group assignments are set and some members of the group have not participated the students who have can declare that X and Y had no input into the project for example.

I don’t know.

@thebraispink they won’t be given their visa unless they submit the results of their TOEFL or IELTS tests as part of their visa application.

I think what’s happened here is that you’ve tried to start a rammy about international students in British universities but you didn’t do your homework about the English language requirements before you posted.

don't think you are making it up but i work in an international school and make applications for my students. Most universities either ask for at least IGCSE grade c in English language or IELTS 6.5 or above.

Your daughter could be exaggerating in all honesty, or the foreign students are blagging it.

Whatever is happening your daughter is now an adult and needs to sort it out herself. She's at university and shouldn't be running to you with academic issues, this shows really poor maturity on her behalf honestly.

Group work is always a pain in the arse, whether everyone speaks the same language or they don’t. There’s always one person doing most of the work, one person half arsing it and the rest doing sweet FA but getting the credit.

Because I was asking for advice on what can be done with only knowledge on my daughter's lived experiences.

Now thanks to asking I'm able to give her the information to ask if the uni and find out if they have actually followed the correct procedures for entry.

but it's not just university, uk visa agency won't give the visa to enter without the IELTS result.

All students will have to have achieved a certain level of competency in English, however I have heard that some companies will provide dodgy certificates.

I don’t, however think that any lecturer will have intended for your daughter to act as a teaching assistant for the international students. She needs to speak up and if the problem persists escalate it.

Seems a bit overkill to disrupt her education and experience if she hasn’t even tried to resolve it.

There was a thread bout this recently from a lecturer. There's a lot of cheating on those English tests. Quite often they will pay for someone else to sit the test. The OP was very frustrated that a lot of her teaching time was being diverted into explaining language rather than content. She wasn't supported by her dept either when she failed the students.