Threetime student cheat passed course

AUCKLAND: A student who was caught cheating three times was still allowed to pass the course, his lecturer says.

The former lecturer, who asked to remain anonymous, said he resigned from the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) in protest after the institute refused to discipline the student.

‘‘The head of faculty refused to discipline or sanction the student, and instead tried to place the blame for the student cheating on to me for being too strict with marking,’’ the lecturer said.

‘‘Appeals by me to the student conduct manual fell on deaf ears, and the head of faculty decision to give the student three free passes on cheating was supported at the highest level of management.

‘‘Working in NZ tertiary education feels like working in the twilight zone, where students receiving a fail grade are always an unacceptable outcome for management, and student cheating is reframed as ‘staff failing to provide adequate student support’.

‘‘It’s not just MIT. In my experience as an academic moderator, it’s [almost] everywhere, both private and statefunded tertiary education.’’

The New Zealand Herald has been inundated with similar stories from universities and polytechnics after a Tertiary Education Union survey of 1006 lecturers found that 63% felt they had come under more pressure in the past decade to pass a higher percentage of students.

The union’s MIT branch president Jill Jones said her faculty was given a target to pass 85% of students, and lecturers who did not achieve the target were grilled about it in their performance reviews.

An MIT graduate who studied performing arts there from 2012 to 2015 said tutors ‘‘were pressured to pass students, no matter what’’. ‘‘The tutors voiced their disapproval in class, it was that bad. ‘They have to pass,’ ’’ the graduate said.

Another former MIT student said his lecturer gave his students their final exam a week early.

‘‘He then marked the answers and went through the questions with his students to show them where they had gone wrong. They then sat the endofterm exam for real and still had students who failed,’’ the former student said.

A former student at a wananga said all students there were ‘‘guaranteed’’ a pass.

‘‘I know because I got my computing level 2 and 3 at the Hamilton one, by doing exams together as a class. If one doesn’t know the answer then just wait for another to give it, then write it on the exam sheet. Easy as, bro,’’ the former student said.

However, Canterbury University student Christine Watson, who has returned to do a second degree 20 years after completing her first degree, said her experience was the complete opposite.

‘‘Students are driven a lot harder now, with less faculty assistance [tutorials now rarely exist] and much higher standards for work submitted,’’ she said. — NZME

❛Working in NZ tertiary education feels like working in the twilight zone❜