pelican,

I fully agree with the CAEs should not have been gone. Moreover, there are too many universities for a country of Australia's size.

A problem complementing poor English is plagiary.

Banjo wrote 25 June 2010 8:15:33 PM:

>... there have been allegations of some places dumbing down the courses to favour students that have poor English skills. ...

I teach International students at the Australian National University. This includes an online e-learning course on Green ICT: http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/

My students can be from anywhere in the world. The issue I have had to deal with is not so much poor English skills, as poor skills in formal academic writing. This is dealt with by referring students to the ANU Academic Skills & Learning Centre for assistance: https://academicskills.anu.edu.au/

Each university has an academic skills centre, to help the staff and students. It should be noted it is not just international students who have difficulty with written work. Students doing technical courses, such as computing, have difficulty expressing themselves. The solution is to teach them technical writing, get them to write and make it part of the assessment.

I discussed some of this in "Online education requires more than technological innovation", Onine Opinion, 15 March 2001: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=982

Since then, the federal government has invested in IT support for education. However, online education and its effect on international student numbers is an issue which the Australian education system has yet to come to grips with. I will be discussing some of this at the Moodle Moot in Melbourne in July: http://moodlemoot.org.au/course/view.php?id=44 and at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane in September: http://www.wcc2010.org/content/industry-speakers

ps: My book on Green IT, used in online courses is at: http://www.tomw.net.au/green/

tomw,

The issue is broader than technical writing, as buliding arguments requires sound written expression. The synthesis of themes seems to especially challenging for some students. Organising thoughts and presenting comments in logical fashion is often a challenge for internatinal students.

Personally, I prefer grade students higher that make it only 70% the way on developing an original concept than I do students who simply return 100% of basic expectations.

In Asia, as an Academic Director over three varied academic schools, I found students excellent at subjects like Economics and Accounting, but challenged by Philosophy and Pychology. I think it all goes back to being guided through rather than particupating in their own secondary education. An absence or quiry based learning,

Also, what can happen might not be best destribed as dumbing, rather, teaching towards notes and expections. The students faithfully reproduce what is expected but are not encouraged (and maybe can't) value add. Herein, we have a CBT excerise. not tertiary scholarship.

Maybe we should hand over part of the Australian medical services to vendors to supply their skills to overseas visitors as well.

The difference between tax payer subsidised and a commercial system

The tax payer expects the beneficiary to be the tax payer, not some alien who has contributed nothing to the fabric and infrastructure.

Of course, a commercial system is solely between the vendor and the consumer of the service and does not need the nanny hand holding of government to intervene for people who should not necessarily expect the protections available to Australian nationals.

Oliver wrote 28 June 2010 4:25:54 PM:

>tomw, The issue is broader than technical writing, as buliding arguments requires sound written expression. The synthesis of themes ...

My students are writing reports on how to reduce the carbon emmissions of real organisations. In some cases the students are living on small islands under threat of indundation from climate change, so these are not abstract techncial issues for them.

>In Asia, as an Academic Director over three varied academic schools, I found students excellent at subjects like Economics and Accounting, but challenged by Philosophy and Pychology. ...

I find the techincal students, wherever they are from, have difficulty with non-techncial subjects. I teach web ethics to ANU students and they have real difficulty with issues of life and death which can result from the failure of computer systems.

>Also, what can happen might not be best destribed as dumbing, rather, teaching towards notes and expections. ...

Yes, I find it useful to set real world problems, such as to do with carbon emissions in the student's own workplace (most have jobs) or on what to do with an emergency web based system which lives depend on.

Comments have been interesting.

Notice that the heds of Unis are still advocating 'pathways to residency', so maybe we will hear more about this in future.

I am still hopefull of being able to compliment this government for doing, at least, one thing right which is stopping the immigration rorts through the education system.