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Overseas push gets lost in translation
TERTIARY

By ALICE RUSSELL
Friday 3 November 2000

RMIT students (from left) Huy Vu, Vonny Pramano, Siok Hsien and danny Lee
Picture: EDDIE JIM



NOT so long ago, an academic talking about the "value of education'' might have been referring to any of a number of things. The broadening of minds, perhaps. The engagement in intellectual debate. The humanising, civilising, society-enhancing benefits of extended education.

These days, the phrase is likely to mean just one thing - dollars.

Australian higher education has entered the marketplace. It has been forced there by cuts to government funding, and although the fiscal results speak of success - education is now a billion-dollar export industry - students, lecturers, researchers and even some in the front line of the marketing process are concerned about the influence of marketplace values on education.

However critical they might be, most acknowledge that universities, with their backs to the wall financially, are operating under great pressure. Professor of education at Monash University Simon Marginson said in his recent book, The Enterprise University, that ``the main contribution of government to marketisation has been to squeeze the level of fiscal support, forcing institutional managers to pursue private dollars wherever they can be found''.

More often than not, they find them in the pockets of the parents of university-aged children in Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, India: 84.8 per cent of overseas students studying at Australian institutions in 1999 were from Asia, although new markets are opening. Last year, 8 per cent came from the United States.

All up, around 70,000 international students study on Australian campuses. Selling education overseas brought $3.1billion dollars into Australia in 1999, $2billion of that from university fees.

Student fees (international and domestic; under and post-graduate) are now the fastest-growing area of university revenue, says Julie Wells, research officer for the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). That most of this money comes from international students is not a concern, she says; it's the shift from public to private funding that generates problems. ``It's really a problem created by the reliance of public institutions on private funding, whereby they have to modify their behavior, standards and practices to ensure that the funding flow doesn't let up,'' she says.

``The value of universities to the community is about advancing knowledge and providing independent high-quality research and education ... those goals are being compromised by the imperative to attract fee-paying students.''

University administrations will not admit problems, she says, for fear of jeopardising their marketing. ``One piece of bad publicity could result in the loss of substantial numbers of students. For them to even acknowledge that there are problems is death in the marketplace.'' Which might explain what often seems to be a conflict between reports from teachers and students, and those from management, about one issue of growing concern: the admission to universities of international students who apparently do not speak English well enough to cope with their courses.

That this should happen is insupportable. As Christine Bundesen, the immediate past chairwoman of ELICOS/English Australia, a member of the board of IELTS Australia and director of the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education at the University of Queensland, points out, this is an English-speaking environment - and ``in order to be able to achieve academically, the students must have the linguistic tools to be able to deal with the academic content.''

But according to students and staff at a number of institutions, those ``linguistic tools'' are not always evident.

The National Liaison Committee for International Students (NLC) recognises it as a problem, one Victorian convenor Gus Tham says can be exacerbated by tutors who also don't speak English fluently. KK Tan Jason, the NLC's national convenor, agrees that ``there are a number of international students who have problems with English''.

At RMIT University, the number of international students has increased in recent years: they now constitute about 22 per cent of enrolments. Some of those same students fear that language problems are also on the rise. Ambareen Musa, the 1999 president of RAIS (the university's international students' association) estimates that about 20 per cent of international students have serious difficulty understanding lectures and communicating in English. RAIS member Danny Lee agrees that ``language is a big problem'', one felt most by students from countries such as Indonesia or Korea that, unlike say Hong Kong or Malaysia, do not have a bilingual culture.

However, Professor Fazal Rizvi, RMIT's pro vice-chancellor (international students), says that while English problems might have occurred 10 years ago they are no longer an issue. Apart from anything else, international students are too central to profits to allow for dubious operations, he says.

Professor Rizvi adds that while rigorous standards of English testing are applied, a student who has swotted for an exam in October might have slipped temporarily in proficiency by the time he or she starts study six months later. The university's Centre for English Language Learning is able to provide assistance and support.

Danny Lee observes that students struggling with English ``find life very difficult and feel very cheated'', but the burden also falls on teachers at a time when academics are already feeling pressured. Julie Wells says that workload issues are not being addressed: ``What we're hearing is that the actual requirements of international students in terms of language support, tuition support and support in adjusting to a new environment, are being borne by individual staff members.''

Lecturers in a number of university departments talk (but not on the record) about the strains of classes with high proportions of international students.

One lecturer estimates conservatively that, in classes where half the students are from overseas, half of those have serious problems with English comprehension. Teachers, torn between frustration with the situation and sympathy for the students, are obliged to use tactics such as repeating key points over and over to give everyone at least some hope of understanding. Many also devote much time outside class to students who may be highly talented but are unable to achieve their potential because of language difficulties.

No one is suggesting that a majority of international students have language problems, but the issue keeps cropping up. Various cases have made the press in the past few years. Most celebrated is that of Dr Gail Graham at Wollongong University who, in 1995, lost her job after going public about her concern that students with minimal English were receiving degrees. Most recent was an October 20 report in the West Australian, which said that Curtin University ``routinely accepted'' students who had not passed standard English entry requirements. Former staff members told the paper that they had been pressured to pass students who did not understand English.

Such students are ``viciously exploited'' says one disenchanted former tutor at an interstate university. Bruce Kaplan, who now works as a sub-editor at The Age, left the job because he was shocked by what was happening.

He was tutoring in journalism, but says: ``The overwhelming majority of students had minimal English. Most of the students would not have passed a basic English test at first-year high-school level.''

He also says he was pressured to pass students who would fail ``if you applied normal criteria''. The whole thing, he says, was a ``most cynical, money-making exercise''.

What's going wrong?

On paper, acceptable standards are applied (see ``Language: the first step'' below). In practice, it's sometimes a little different says AnneMarie Cooper, head of IDP Education Australia's international education services branch. (IDP is an independent organisation that promotes Australian education internationally.) ``The main concern of universities is to get the numbers,'' Ms Cooper says. ``This may result in them waiving English language proficiency requirements.''

In the scramble to sign up students at education exhibitions overseas, Ms Cooper says, students are not always required to take a language test, or might only sit university inhouse tests that are not necessarily properly validated (unlike the internationally recognised TOEFL or IELTS tests). Others are accepted conditionally into universities, with a place guaranteed provided they do an appropriate language course. ``But sometimes there's no formal assessment at the end of the course - apart from maybe a certificate of completion.''

Ms Cooper's employer, IDP, is a partner in IELTS, so she might be said to have a vested interest in insisting that students should meet IELTS requirements. But students applying for admission to Australian universities through IDP can also do so with other internationally benchmarked tests. ``My concern is the lowering of standards,'' she says. ``It doesn't matter if students take a TOEFL test, as long as they take a test that is a good indicator of their current level of English.''

Christine Bundesen is also concerned about what appears to be ``an increasing trend in some institutions to develop their own English language test and not to use the publicly benchmarked test''.

The problems, she emphasises, are not with the students but with institutions ``that are so eager to get the students into the programs that in some instances the integrity of the English language requirement is undermined''. Ms Bundesen stresses that she is not criticising the approach at her own institution, the University of Queensland, which she says is ``very tight and regimented''.

Consequences aren't limited to students with language problems, or teachers. Other students can be disappointed by classes where many of their colleagues lack English proficiency. ``Sometimes this can impact on the academic progress of courses,'' Ms Bundesen says. ``It can slow things down. It can impede communications in tutorials or research groups.''

IDP is researching the issue, but results won't be available until next month. Meanwhile, there are no statistics to confirm‎ or deny the impression that it is an increasing problem, one that cuts across all the educational sectors, not just higher education, and that doesn't include every institution, but cannot be assumed not to affect the ``big name'' universities.

Feedback from IDP's overseas offices, where staff do graduate placements for students returning home after completing their degrees, suggests the impact is being felt beyond our shores, Ms Cooper says. ``They are seeing students who are coming out to Australia, doing a full degree program, going back, yet still not having really strong English proficiency.''

But how would they have managed to pass the course?

``That's a very good question,'' says Ms Cooper.

It's not the only one that should be asked. Quality across the board appears threatened, and not just in relation to language issues. NurulHuda Mohamed Afandi, president of the Melbourne University Overseas Students Service, voices concerns also heard at other universities when she talks of tutorials that are ``virtual'' rather than actual; tutors who are not proficient in English, or are only one year ahead of their students academically; of law seminars with 30 people in them.

In a statement responding to this, Professor James Angus, president of the academic board at Melbourne University, says the university has ``transition support programs'' to help students adapt to different approaches to learning, and that the Law School ``uses a variety of teaching techniques and class sizes, according to the subject matter''.

NTEU's Julie Wells says: ``The quality of higher education in Australia, which has been the foundation of our success in attracting international students, is at risk.'' .

The government might have forced them to it, but short of a change of mind that puts the oldfashioned notion of value back into higher education, it is up to the universities to sort themselves out.

``Universities are largely free to do as they like in this market, despite the fact that the practices may not always be educationally or culturally sound,'' says Simon Marginson. ``The government doesn't interfere.''

And, however much money it makes for the country, that ultimately isn't going to count for much. ``People aren't going to flock to Australian universities because they're good at balancing the bottom line,'' says Professor Marginson.

``What matters is the product. If we lose sight of that, we lose the whole thing in the long term. We lose the game, and I think we are in danger of doing that.''

Culture of confusion

MANY people involved in international education stress the importance of viewing apparent language difficulties in a cultural context. ``It can be difficult for students coming from a different cultural background, with different learning styles,'' says Jenny Lang, executive director of the international office at the University of New South Wales.

Lynn Furze, international student adviser at Charles Sturt University in Albury, agrees: ``Often people will say, `English is a problem, English is a problem', when in fact it's not English, it's a different approach to learning.''

According to Ian Fraser, associate dean RMIT Business, Asian students are generally used to education systems where the teacher is next to God: to question a teacher is almost insulting. The rote learning system is common, and the idea of having to do your own research or speak up in tutorials is highly challenging.

Many universities have ``learning centres'', part of whose function is to help students adjust to a different approach. ``There are certain groups of students who irrespective of their (English language) scores will have problems in the first six months,'' says Jenny Lang. ``We are ready for that with English and academic support programs so that by the end of first semester they will be up to speed.''

Language: the first step

THE Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee code of ethical practice for universities with international students states that: ``Candidates for admission should be competent in English. Universities should have clear, well-established guidelines on their English, or other, language requirements.''

Requirements are set by the enrolling institution and determined by the proposed course of study - law, for example, often requires a better grasp of English than other courses. Students either sit an aptitude test or provide evidence of their ability through an internationally recognised language test such as Cambridge, TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or IELTS (International English Language Testing System).

IDP Education Australia is one of the owners of IELTS, with the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and the British Council. The IELTS test is recognised by universities in the UK, Canada and the US and preferred by some institutions because it assesses skills in four areas: reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Australian universities' published English requirements are similar to those in other countries. Some debate exists about whether they are high enough, but it is generally agreed they are.