Quote:
Originally Posted by zab02
The thing is that these Internationals that come to Australia are the ones that were not good enough to get into Uni's in their own country. Because of their rich parents and Australia's willingness to accept Cashed-up Students, they come here. To prevent them from dropping out, the Uni lowers the standards and therefore the degree loses its prestige and the local students suffer because of it.
The sad thing is the Uni's have become a business, its not there to provide education. It's there to make a profit.
How do you make a profit?, you cut costs- increase Tut and lecture sizes, so the cost per student is small and most of the paperwork has been outsourced online. Sure they have become efficient in providing education, the cost per student is small but is that really effective?
Increasing class sizes, increasing lecture sizes, reduced contact hours, increasing intake of full fee paying students has just worsened educational standards- degraded the piece of paper the degree is written on.
School was about providing education before, my old Year 12 coordinator said she finished 2 degree's and it didnt cost her a cent and back then they had tut classes which had to have less than 12 students. So now they have introduced fee's, increased them at every opportunity and provided a poorer standard of teaching then they did before. Talk about value for Customers. Now the Liberal government wants to bring Hecs fee's for Commerce to the top band which is equal to that with Law and allow Uni's to accept more full fee paying students. It's a sad inditement on this country, were we are now and the way we are heading.
yeah the ones that come here are serious crappy dumb people who can't make it in their own country but have rich parents.
First of all, I AM an international student from an asian country. The reason I am here studying in Australia is not, one, because I'm not good enough to get into uni in my own country, two, and not because it's easy to get in here because I have "rich parents". If I were to stay in my country and finish my course there, I would get into university easy, AND with FULL scholarship. International students face the same stringent methods used to 'pick' students for the university. In case you haven't looked at an International booklet, internationals have to achieve an equivalent to your UAI score in order to be accepted into a particular university here. Whether it is a Hong Kong A-levels, or STPM, or Cambridge A-levels, or International Baccalaureate, or what have you. We have to achieve the equivalent of whatever the UAI is for whatever course that we are applying for.
I AM HERE BECAUSE THE STANDARD OF EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA IS ON PAR WITH THE UK AND THE US IN MANY UNIVERSITIES. Many international students come here because having an overseas education is seen as more desirable to employers due to the higher level of education.
I'm here under scholarship, thank you very much, and I've gone through Australian Year 12 English with an A, and also the International English Language Tests (IELTS) with a score of 8.5. Yes, I agree that many international students do not have a proper grasp of the english language to adequately express themselves, either spoken or written-wise. However this problem is not their fault. What can you do when the national language is not english, and you grow up learning it in school, and speaking it at home? However, this does not mean that international students are STUPID, JUST because they can't speak a language you have learnt since you were a kid? Again, as I have said above, certain scores are needed to get into australian universities.
Also, I completely agree with the fact that many internationals (I'm assuming you all are pinpointing asians here) stick to their own 'kind'. Well, again, are we to blame them? They are in a foreign strange country, where they don't speak the language very well and have a funny accent when they do, where the food is weird and people aren't very friendly to them because they look or act different. So they 'huddle' together for protection. So would you if you were overseas in a country where you don't speak the language well.
I believe the standard of education in Australia IS going down. But so are the standards of the whole world. Why ? We've discussed this in economics, debated about it. First of all, every country wants their work force to be competitive, right? With globalisation happening so rapidly now, people have to be able to compete in the world labour market/countries have to able to be competitive. More and more people are getting degrees, every one has some kind of qualification nowadays. Therefore, in order to keep their labour force competitive, ALL countries around the world lower their education standards. And it's easier now for anyone to get in!
Do not assume the same of every international student. I'm scoring HDs and Ds in my classes, so I don't see why I "lower the standards" when so many others are barely passing.
That's my two cents.