International students & widespread cheating

[Pewdie]

Last year I was a masters student (MSc Management). Majority of the modules involved group work. Often times I found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with my teammates. They would often confuse very basic models/terms and their emails, WhatsApp messages were intelligible and riddled with errors. However, when it came to producing the actual assignments the standard would be incredibly high. I understand people perform differently in different contexts in how people perform varies in different contexts but I just can't believe there was nothing untoward going on. AIBU to suspect there is widespread plagiarism occurring at universities among rich, international students.

Just to note I am not bitter nor resentful. I have watched many international students agonise over assignments.

clande - I disagree. My mother was told she was going to die by someone whose English was so bad that she couldn’t understand him and he couldn’t understand her because there were both EFL and generational differences in their English.

@Maria but that was not Clandes point.
Even indigenous people will not be expected to understand every single local idiom in the U.K. and like Clande said even she had to google the meaning of ‘Mardy’, I also do not understand what it means. Her argument is that very localised terms like these cannot be used as a standard measure of proficiency. ‘Standard’ in this context means the norm, and terms like ‘Mardy’ or any other local lingo or slang are not the norm all over the U.K.

Of course doctors have to be able to use and understand the local vernacular

Maria - No they don't. They need to be proficient in standard English, the same as any other British doctor. British doctors do not need to understand every single local vernacularism across the UK in order to practise do they ?. Local vernacular is something that will be picked up over time on a case by case basis.

Shimy- meaning is contextual. No culture - no context.

It matters.

Anyone with friends in academia (God help you) will likely know how far the rot set in. Undergraduate levels of English are shocking in students from the U.K.. Lecturers either correct the work to an acceptable standard or fail the students and lose their course next year (which might mean their job).

No one fails the students. The essays I’ve seen are palimpsests of cut and paste. Googling them shows the origin. The better off ones submit excellent essays they could not have written themselves.

Relative has been in schools a lot (consultant- GCSE) and said the coursework cheating where teachers would write the coursework for the kids was endemic until the all-exam reform (which was meant to stamp it out).

I can’t see it getting any better with children being tested on reading nonsense words at 5.

Yanboo - Its called a standard proficiency test for a reason. Its testing "standard" English not local vernacular.

If patients speak in vernacular English, doctors need to understand it. It’s not hard to get to grips with local vernacular English if your grasp of standard English is firm.

@Maria Yes of course, I totally agree with that. But do you agree that a 'standard proficiency English test' cannot include a test for local vernacular? secondly, which local vernacular will it be based on?

Doctors who are EEA nationals/ qualified are entitled to registration automatically in most cases - but they dont get a licence to practise in the UK until they've evidenced their knowledge of English: www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/join-the-register/registration-applications/application-guides/full-registration-for-european-doctors-who-graduated-in-an-eea-country-or-switzerland/your-knowledge-of-english

This hasn't always been the case, so there might still be doctors working who haven't got appropriate language skills. But they should be reported by their employer or patients.

I don’t think it is necessary/possible to test candidates’ grasp of vernacular English. They just need to be held to a sufficiently high standard of Standard English, such that learning vernacular is straightforward.

To pick up on the point by @MeteorGarden
I have experience working as a course director in a 'middling' UK University with high proportion international students. There are quality standards which apply to assessment diversity and technologies which support staff to 'catch' students who are submitting work which is not their own. It can sometimes take three years to catch a cheating student - but the practices on academic misconduct do catch them. However there are two principles which support many home and international students alike to get away with purchased essays. The first is the principle that it is better to let a cheat get away with it than punish an innocent person. The second is the fear of litigious behaviour from students/parents in cases of inaccurate needs assessment of students with additional learning requirements. Both these principles encourage panels examining student cases to err heavily on the side of the student. The first is justifiable, the second less so. In addition, the pressures on universities and on staff are such that student support facilities are overstretched, financial needs are prioritised, and working to identify academic misconduct is a serious job which is not sufficiently resourced. In fact, the task has a negative impact on the career progression of many academic staff if they devote the time and energy to do it well.
So I commend the original poster for highlighting the issue of quality management in our universities, and I wholly support those who would like to raise the political and organisational questions regarding what institutions are doing to address this. But this is not about international students - it is about a failure to resource and manage our universities effectively to produce an excellent high quality system of education.

Maria That was exactly the point Clande was making upthread and I agree with it.