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.

Uni is using foreign students for mega fees no doubt

Universities are obliged to take a good proportion of overseas students as home student fees have not increased for a decade but the cost of buildings, staff, pensions, electricity etc have, and many universities would be bust if they did not.

HTH.

I know someone who works in admissions for a large university. They report the same problem and apparently it’s common for students to cheat on language tests, but the university make so much money from them…

I can tell you with certainty that the DD showing the list of student names to her mum is a breach of the university's IT user policy and that if the university found out about it, it would be a data breach incident that would need to be recorded and remedied. Whether that does not technically constitute a GDPR breach in a court of law is beside the point, it's still something the DD should not do.

The years working in academia prior to my recent return to studentship was the same experience (different institution) working with both postgrad and undergrad students of all nationalities. They have to show evidence of appropriate higher education level English language capability. I’ve never come across anyone who didn’t have the appropriate levels, in 20 years.

And it would seem you did not know what I meant by disingenuous, so clearly no, not everyone knows what I meant 🤦‍♀️. There were no accusations of lying, merely that there was in insincerity in the meaning behind the post, hence disingenuous. I don’t make up meanings of words to suit my narrative, I prefer this thing called a dictionary definition.

And others on this thread with backgrounds in academia have similar experiences to OP’s DD.

I haven’t changed my view of what you meant by disingenuous. I shan’t engage with you again.

The IELTS test isn't a qualification - it's a one off exam that takes just under three hours and candidates do not have to show evidence of studying English in school or university or anywhere else in order to sit it. Hiring proxies to do the test is commonplace.

Just to add, there are agencies that 'translate' course and degre content and grades into their equivalents in schools and universities in other countries.

@EnidSpyton thank you, you put that better than me!

Oh please read the thread. Shes doing a degree that is majority course work where group work is graded. She can't simply just refuse to take part. She's also articulate and more intelligent than some posters on this thread, she has a voice in her head and asked for advice.

And no doubt she will. But I the meantime she's busy trying to teach English to her peers.

@mathanxiety I'm afraid it's the group mark in some cases hence the worry heading into year 2.

I missed this. She should not have the list.
If you are a student working in a group, you need the names and contact details of that group.
If you are in a larger class, you should not have the whole list (not quite sure why you call it a register - do they call out names in class and they have to answer? this isn't school) because this is a breach of GDPR.

@worstofbothworlds good lord read the thread. Whats with the GDPR police. 👮

I have read the thread and as an academic I have to be highly aware of my legal requirements. You may think it's OK for your daughter's Uni to break the law but it actually isn't.

Until recently, I worked in various parts of HE for over a decade. From admissions to programme management to teaching during the first couple of years of my PhD.

The language issue with Chinese students was certainly a problem during my time in HE. Yes, there is a reasonably high IELTS requirement to get a visa and a place on the course but it's well known that people cheat the system. A huge proportion of the Chinese students who arrived at the university could speak very little English. They would live with other Chinese students, speak only Mandarin, and would not engage in class. It was common for work to be written in their native language and then put through a translation app, bought from an essay mill, or they were dragged over the finish line by English-speaking students who needed a pass mark.

These students would be awarded their degree and then, because a UK undergrad degree satisfies the language requirement for Master's level study, they would go on to get a postgrad degree, then leave the UK still unable to speak English.

We had complaints similar to OP's daughter's year in, year out but because they had provided a satisfactory IELTS result before they arrived, there was nothing we could realistically do. We offered free pre-sessional and in-sessional English tuition but... they couldn't understand the emails advertising it. Tutors spoke to them about the tuition face to face but they just wouldn't go.

I think some people are clinging to something - anything - to try and discredit your DD's experience. Ignore them.

I have found it interesting so thanks for sharing. My DD is hoping to go to uni next year so I have shared this with her and told her to watch out for it. Her degree course is going to cost me a fortune so I don't want her bailing out other students and putting her own grades in jeopardy just to save the university's blushes.

@amusedbush what's the best approach for OPs DD do you think?

Do the group exercise by herself, then share it? Or speak to the tutor and ask them about approach.

If this is a known situation then surely it's massively unfair to have any group exercises.

@rookiemere unfortunately I think its highlighted more as my DD is doing a creative course that revolves around group work.

There are of course individual modules but the whole of graphic design and our industry is collaborative in its very nature. Both at degree training and in real life.

We tend to work as teams across different levels and disciplines so language and understanding concepts and written briefs is key to being able to create. No avoiding the group situations.

My dd is also doing a creative degree, which is a sister and complement to OP's dd's course. She chose a London university (for various reasons) which is less of a brand name than UAL. Dd has not mentioned any issues with Chinese students and English language slowing down the group work. I do believe OP's concerns are real because we did visit some of the UAL unis, and having done our research, this is a known thing with UAL and a higher percentage of foreign students.

OP, if your dd wishes to move to another London uni, my dd has friends in the graphic design course who can speak to it.

@TheThingIsYeah if you actually read my post you'd see I recognise the experience of difficult group-mates and suggested some strategies and said how we'd deal with such a complaint.
I would also suggest that the student complain about breach of GDPR, remember HER details are out there for all the other students to read. I'm not suggesting a university would never do this. I'm suggesting it's wrong of them to do it.

I spoke to the ICO today so you can all rest and relax. As I happened to have to pay them as a business owner.

My DD having access to the class list via a google doc is not a breach of GDPR, her showing me a list of students on her phone is also not a breach of GDPR.

If she had shared the list with me electronically, it's a breach.

The students have given consent to be on the list and that list is being used appropriately based on the legal basis, it's also not sharing emails and any personal data other than a name.

I've asked for this thread to be removed, we have had some amazing advice thank you all, I can confirm I'm not making this up, lying or bullshitting for a reaction, I'm busy I don't have time.

I can also confirm it boils my piss when the self proclaimed academics and GDPR experts can't just call the ICO and fact check the own bullshit.

My DCs are in the US and did their degrees there. One DC in particular has a degree in a subject that involved a lot of group work. There was always a way to distinguish the contribution of each person in any given group, and individuals who weren't contactable or who didn't participate were reported to the professor, who in some cases reconstituted groups.

Projects had check-in dates along the way to the final deadline. At these interim points, any difficulties could be brought up and progress monitored. It was recognized that the mark each individual got should reflect their contribution to the actual assignment, not the wrangling ability of one particular student in the group, or the ability of just one or two.

If the degree is supposed to prepare students for careers in a collaborative industry, then the management of communication and the dynamics of group work should be formally taught, and the expectation of full participation needs to be very forcefully spelled out to prospective students.

@mathanxiety guessing uni’s in the US don’t rely heavily on income from foreign students?

That’s the problem with ours now, in my State they provide over half the uni’s income (and that’s down post Covid due to our strict border lock downs in Covid still making people nervous). That’s a shit tonne of funding that uni’s don’t want to lose and why ours don’t do group assignment marking as you have described, as foreign students would fail! Fail enough of them and you don’t get future replacements! Nationally, foreign students also contribute nearly Au$27 billion to our national economy. May sound like peanuts but we have a pretty small population relative to places like the US, so that’s meaningful $ to our government, so they heavily encourage uni’s here to facilitate a really low churn rate of foreign students.

OP, thanks for starting the thread. It was a good discussion. I’ve discussed with a DC who is doing final choices for Uni this week.