No inquiry into grade fudging
Whistleblowers are being urged to come forward as regulatory bodies say they don’t know enough to investigate tertiary grade manipulation allegations.
A survey of more than 1000 Tertiary Education Union (TEU) members released this week found 57.1 per cent of university staff and 71.7 per cent of polytechnic and trades school staff felt increasing pressure to pass underperforming students.
Respondents said an emphasis on course completion rates, which accounted for about 5 per cent of institutions’ funding, led to pressure to ignore cheating, pass failing students and lower the standard for international students.
Universities New Zealand (UNZ) chairman Stuart McCutcheon has hit back at the survey’s claims, saying he had never seen evidence of such coercion in his 25 years in the sector.
A New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) spokeswoman said the organisation took such allegations ‘‘extremely seriously’’ and that tertiary educators who reported ‘‘unacceptable’’ practices, such as plagiarism and cheating, would be afforded legal protection.
‘‘High-quality tertiary education providers have good processes in place to ensure that cheating is detected and will not allow students to pass assessments where they have not met the required standard,’’ he said.
‘‘Where NZQA finds any problems, either as a result of a complaint or our own monitoring activities, firm action is taken.’’
However, the agency only handled quality assurance for independent training providers, with UNZ and the Academic Quality Agency (AQA) responsible for auditing universities.
UNZ director Chris Whelan said he was taking the concerns raised in the survey seriously and was seeking more information from the TEU ‘‘to get a clearer picture’’.
AQA executive director Sheellagh Matear said she was open to discussing the allegations with the union ‘‘before we identify whether there’s a need for an inquiry’’.
‘‘One of the challenges we have got at the moment is that the material in the report is really difficult to substantiate and it doesn’t align with our experience of New Zealand universities. I’m not diminishing what the TEU have done, but I don’t think there’s enough at this point, without further discussion, for us to frame an inquiry.’’
TEU president Sandra Grey said vice-chancellors and chief executives needed to ‘‘get teaching staff around the table’’ and listen carefully.
‘‘We never said they are changing grades, we said there was pressure to change grades. The members are talking about pressure they are under to do things that attack their personal integrity.’’
She said the Tertiary Education Commission had agreed to meet to discuss the survey results.
The Office of the Ombudsman would ‘‘monitor the matters highlighted in the report’’, but had no plans to investigate ‘‘at this stage’’, a spokeswoman said.