Australia's Quest for Lucrative Foreign Students May Have a Dark Side

Curricula at Risk? Australia's Quest for Lucrative Foreign Students May Have a Dark Side, Study Says


The Chronicle of Higher Education


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http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/10/2004100804n.htm

In part:

 

Without doubt it is a major concern, and is receiving a write up in my PhD. Our universities must take stock of what is happening - a severe shake up of priorities re-funding must occur, otherwise....well, we are going to go further under.

Cheers,

George

 

I am presently in Hong Kong visiting some of our DL students and various university departments. Among my discussions with Hong Kong faculty the subject of DBA programmes has come up and top of the list has been Australian 'DBA' programmes available and advertised in Hong Kong and Malayasia.

At EBS we carefully researched the required structure for a DL DBA programme and, being a business School, we carefully costed a DBA programme. Because it is a doctoral programme, even within the srructure of our scalable DL pedagogy, there was an irreduciable minimum of DT (see other threads) required in the supervision portion of the DBA dissertation. That portion produced the highest unit costs.

Hence, when I was shown and told the total costings for three of the Australian so-called 'DBAs' I was as suspicious of their quality as my Hong Kong hosts, senior faculty with considerable experience at reputable university level. These three Australian 'DBA' programmes were well below the EBS costs of the DL protion of the EBS DBA (and nobody knows more about scalable DL costs than we do). I concluded, as did my hosts, that the three Australian 'universities' so-called 'doctoral' DBAs were close to being analagous to those of the cheap end of the degree mill providers.

Yet, these 'DBAs' had minimal taught courses (one has 5 only!) and the bulk of their very short 'DBAs' programmes were concentrated on their so-called 'dissertations', which is the most expensive portion of a reputable DBA. There was no way that these Australian 'DBAs' were serious academically; they could not be classed as of doctotal standard and the so-called 'universities' selling them in Hong Kong were, to put it delicately, less than wonderful, or, to come off the fence, they were outright fraudulent, and the 'academics' associated with them were a disgrace to the good name and reputation of the bulk of Australian Universities.

To my regret, such conduct brings not just themselves into disrepute but also the reputation of DL (and DT) pedagogies. The so-called 'graduates' of such 'DBAs' are already labelled as jokes with joke 'dotorates' somewhere below the standard of an undergraduate project.

 

From news.com.au: Unis in fierce battle for Asia's e-students

 

Traps for the unwary

This also occurs at the masters degree level as well. Some of us no longer teach in HE for this reason ...

There are plenty of traps for the unwary, and yes, some institutions are $$$ driven.

Things to be aware of include:

1. Offshore 'campuses' of universities that are NOT a part of the mother university, but a business arrangement with a non-university provider in the foreign country.

2. Onshore degrees offered only to foreign students - a bit hard to verify but several such degrees exist. Locals are NOT permitted to enter these degrees which MAY carry the same title.

3. DE masters degrees requiring a 4 year first degree - aimed in many cases specifically at 'foreign' DE students as the majority of our first degrees are 3 year degrees.

4. Degrees 'sounding like' other degrees but not the same - particularly prevalent in the 'masters' area in education, IT, accounting ... they can be identified in that the participants first degree much be from another discipline.

5. A variation on [4] where the masters degrees are 'repackaged' undergraduate degree coursework - the argument [I don't accept it] is that these degrees are masters post graduate degrees as the participant anlready has 'graduated' and has an undergraduate degree albeit in another disclipline. These degrees have NO Australian masters level content, although the coursework may be that delivered in a masters degree in the US - e.g IT, Accounting, Law etc

For this reason I always assess someone on their transcipt, not the degree awarded.

 

Any evidence of this? I have been working for my DBA from USQ for almost 5 years and can hardly say is a joke. I have been able to publish some articles and it has helped me to land some adjunct positions in local and online universities. I took a look at the DBA at Heriot Watt and it looks like a solid program but it is almost useless for teaching purposes since it doesn't offer specialization options. Most of the jobs in academia and industry require specialization and general DBAs are not very helpful in landing jobs.

Yes, the DBA at USQ only requires 8 courses compared with the 11 required at EBS. However, courses are aligned to a specialization area while the EBS DBA has only a bunch of general management courses that are not of much value to an MBA holder.

In addition, the DBA at EBS is extremely expensive and almost impossible to afford for the regular professional. I think that judging a DBA as a "joke" just because you feel that is under priced is a bit arrogant from you. My supervisor is a full time profressor at USQ and I can assure you that he is not being paid few bucks for this.

 

Hi Prof. Kennedy,

I'm sad to see that a respectful professor like you is making this kind of "generalization" regarding the Australian DBA.

As an online DBA student at University of Newcastle, I can tell you that my learning experience is great. All of the papers that I've submitted so far are marked and evaluated properly by the Newcastle professors, and that all of the papers submitted have to be checked by Turninin (www.turnitin.com). The online blackboard platform is great and I can share my knowledge with other DBA students around the world.

I also receive real text books, notes, and supporting CD-roms via DHL every trimester and I have the opportunity to do team work with other students in another country.

Last month, I had the opportunity to meet some of my Newcastle on-line DBA classmates in Hong Kong and they are local academics/instructors working at local univerisities.

My DBA supervisor is a full-time professor working at U of Newcastle in Australia and he is a strict, serious academic (as I've studied in one of his online courses as well)

The high quality of DBA students, the use of Turnitin for assignment, the requirement to participate in online discussion using blackboard, together with the excellent online support from faculty members at Newcastle, lead me to believe that I'm getting excellent DBA education from a reputable Australian university.

I have no doubt that there are bad universities around the world, but I am quite disappointed to see that you are judging the Australian universities and their DBA programs mostly based on their so-called "low" fee.

It may be cheap tuition fee from your British standard/perspective, but it is reasonable fee for me who is a working professional in Canada.

It is just bad marketing practice to call your competitors "diploma mills" and damage the reputation of future, hardworking DBA graduates like me by making generalizations statement like this.


Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Ken K. Wong, BSc (Toronto), MBA (Nyenrode)
Toronto, Canada

 

Ken,

Australian DBAs are affordable for us that make canadian dollars. Local PhDs are cheaper than australian DBAs but most schools won't take part time students.

The DBA at EBS would be almost next to impossible to do for people making canadian bucks. This type of program wouldn't work in Canada, it would be a lot cheaper to quit your job and do it full time at a reputable local university.

Besides, most of the jobs available in the market are in specialized fields like accounting or finance and the EBS DBA is in general management. A general management DBA wouldn't be very helpful for the vast majority of professionals or business teachers.

As for acceptability, English and Australian degrees work well in Canada, so why to pay a fortune to have the UK label?

 

1. USQ use the same material/requirements globally and last time
I looked they were well abopve reproach.

2. The homebased Newcastle degrees have been OK - they are currently in trouble over their Malaysian operation - if the online work is the same as offered here it seems OK.

3. EBS always crow about their assessments and the Professor and I have crossed swords before. Their entire assessment process relies on examinations which counters accepted principles of assessment - they are not balanced as they rely on one assessment method only. Being good at examinations really doesn't prove other than that the person is good at examinations. It suits EBS and sells enough courses for them, but I have worked with their some of their graduates, and their performance in the real world would not cause one to select EBS.

4. Professor Kennedy's remarks are more likely to bring his name into disrepute than that of the places he fails to name - until he names them he includes all Australian universities operating offshore. I hoep that he has the proof of what he holds to as he may well be asked for it ... and soon.

 

Hi
I have just returned from a business visit to Hong Kong and China, during which connection to degreeinfo was intermittent. Hence, I have not had a chance to reply to some interesting comments, which I think have grasped my remarks out of context and, by generalising them, have taken some unnecewsary pot shots at myself.

First, I am not denigrating all Australian DBAs, nor all Australian overseas operations. I was referring to a particular case of a badly constructed DBA from an Australian university, which is unnamed by me (it has been by others) because as a UK academic it would be discourteous to do so under the normal conventions of inter-University relations. While this is inconvenient to my case, it is also the most I can do to make public comment on conduct and course design by what I believe is an institution, or rather department within one, which is likely to bring itself into disrepute. The other alternative I have is to say nothing about such conduct, but that would only benefit the promoters of its 'DBA'. Such people also discredit all other universities and their DBA programmes and the notion of distance learning.

Speaking to senior Asian academics, it is they who regard such 'DBAs' as a 'joke', without any encouragement from myself. It is not my view that a DBA is worthless because it is low priced; but when the price could not sustain a proper academic service by qualified staff and when this clearly affects the quality, as it must, then there is something seriously wrong with it. We have costed all aspects of a DBA to British standards - the course work and the supervision, of which the latter is of high cost (and is higher than the total cost of the so-called DBA in question). Hence, something has to give in quality in extremely cheap, by Asian standards, 'DBAs'.

When the same MBA is franchised to a local provider and the local franchisee devolves the selection of 'supervisors' to the 'DBA' students because the ones that they 'select' keep resigning, I am concerned for the reputation of foreign DBAs. I raise none of this because I wish to promote the EBS DBA. It is most certainly not suitable for those restrained by personal circumstances, including non-sponsorship by their employers. It is expensive because of the costs of providing it. It is a doctoral level programme, not a means to earn foreign currency. Neither is it suitable for those who wish to become teachers or researchers in universities, for which a PhD is recommended. It is for senior managers in industry, commerce and government.

However, all that is by the way and mentioned only to indicate that I contribute, somewhat in anger, to a debate on the standards of a DBA programme. I have spoken on many occasions in the promotion of the high academic standards of many named Australian Universities and did so several times during my recent Asian visit (e.g., Australian National University, Sydney University, Melbourne University, Queensland University, and the 'old' NSW Institute of Technology, all of which I am familiar with).

My comments on public statements about Newcastle recently here refer to an incident in which a failed examinee was passed on instructions of a higher authority. I was not referring to the University as a whole. As these were in the public domain and from the University, I felt released from the usual convention. As the 'DBA' comments I spoke of were from private conversations and e-mails, I feel bound by the convention.

I hope RF Valve recognises my passion to protect the DL mode of teaching from irregularities; that Mr Wong accepts that I do not believe that all, or any, Australian Universities are 'diploma mills', though sometimes some people in them can drop the high standards expected of them; and that Peter French (nice to see you back Peter!) will restrain himself from turning this from a defence of high standards (as his first contribution seemed to support) into a an exchange of bad tempered remarks. Our enemy is within the gates and it is not each other.

 

Excuse me....?

Not wishing to pick a fight, but :

1. You cannot argue now that you are referring to one program - your opening message clearly stated 3 DBA programs..."three of the Australian so-called 'DBAs'..." and so on.

2. Having been involved in the costing of some overseas programs, they are not all necessarily costed to break even or make a profit - to assume that EBS could not do the same program for the same price proves nothing.

3. My comment "...Professor Kennedy's remarks are more likely to bring his name into disrepute than that of the places he fails to name - until he names them he includes all Australian universities operating offshore. I hoep that he has the proof of what he holds to as he may well be asked for it ... and soon..." were not in anger but simply passing on the remarks of some rather pissed of academics out here. So I suggest you cool it - you made the accusations ...

4. The EBS program clearly works for EBS and some who undertake it. It however relies solely on one method of assessment, which favours people who respond well in that form of assessment - that is not everybody, and anyone who fails the EBS assessment criteria may do so for the sole reason that they do not perfrom well in that environment. Selecting one form of assessment only raises queries as to the validity of results determined by this sole method. You won't agree, but that [a] doesn't alter the fact, and it is not said in 'anger'

 

Hi Peter

I take your points on the basis of your explanantions.

However, I think it more appropriate that your academic colleagues direct their concerns on this issue to the departments within certain institutions that have created the problem of the status of some DBAs in some overseas markets. I am merely the messenger. To direct their anger at me is to mistarget their attention.

They could also help protect the reputations of distance learning and distance teaching as legitimate modes of provision of higher education, and for that purpose I am not the target for their ire.

From the context of the paragraph describing what I was told and shown by my Asian hosts about the 'DBAs' in question it is quite clear that the use of 'the' in one sentence is in reference to the three 'DBAs' and not to the collective of all Australian DBAs:

'Hence, when I was shown and told the total costings for three of the Australian so-called 'DBAs' I was as suspicious of their quality as my Hong Kong hosts, senior faculty with considerable experience at reputable university level. These three Australian 'DBA' programmes were well below the EBS costs of the DL protion of the EBS DBA (and nobody knows more about scalable DL costs than we do). I concluded, as did my hosts, that the three Australian 'universities' so-called 'doctoral' DBAs were close to being analagous to those of the cheap end of the degree mill providers.'

How much of my information was historical and which were current was not specified. I don't consider the 'profit' issue to be a protection against a charge of lack of quality. The biggest cost of a DBA programme comes from that of supervision of the dissertation and, in my humble view based on the detailed work we did in costing for a doctoral level DBA, the requisite standard of supervision over a two or three year period could not be covered by the amounts charged in these progrmames for the whole DBA with a taught element, DL or DT. That was also the view of my Asian hosts, even if local staff were recruited as the supervisors. I may be wrong in my estimations and this is an empirical question.

Finally, I do not see such programmes as 'competition' and I assert sincerely I do not think this is an issue about EBS versus these types of programmes. Our price structure is designed not to appeal to that sector of the DBA market that finds our programme too expensive. The problem is that when the proverbial hits the fan, as it will sooner or later from these 'DBAs', that it does not spread to all DL and DT DBAs, especially foreign ones.

Your points about assessment should really be debated in another thread - if you care to start one I will join in - because I think your assessments of our pedagogy and assessment regime are interesting but not relevant to this thread.

Incidentally, Mr Wong in Canada may be right about pricing in Canadian dollars for unsupported help from corporate employers, though his comments about our prices are not borne out by applications (and acceptances) from Canadian DBA students when supported by corporate sponsorship, that I see in EBS, and what must be being seen by other staff running US, Canadian and British DBA programmes into Canada with similar or even higher prices for their supported programmes.

For the record, and for balance, my views on certain 'DBA' programmes marketed from Britain by certain universities to foreign students are ever bit as severe as I have made towards certain 'DBA' programmes sourced from Australia. The motive here appears to be cash flow and not quality. Several UK universities have dropped their DBA programmes because the cash flow did not materialise or, I like to think, because of their shame that they put their university's name to them.

 

I would have to see the actual data, sample size, assumptions, admission criteria (such as TOEFL score reqs) etc. of the programs on which the assertion is based.

My guess it that, if standards are indeed changed, it does not hold true for all types of courses. English writing- or speaking-intensive courses may see a lowering of English standards. However, for math, engineering and science courses, I would guess, based on anecdotal evidence, that the overall academic standard would remain the same or be increased. In any case, instructors should not lower there expectations. As a remedy for lower-quality work in English-intensive course, schools could require higher English-language proficiency as an entrance requirement and offer/require remedial coursework to increase English proficiency and as a higher requirement for graduation.

Naturally, a maintenance of or increase in requirements is directly proportional to losses in foreign tuition dollars (although my guess is that offering a good remedial program would do the opposite) and is a temptation for some schools. Schools will just have to decide on what side of the fence they are on.

 

2 observations:

1. The English score is reliable to the extent that its components can be separately determined. However when the typical scoring system is used, the final score only is available which is an average of the components. This may be OK in some soft areas, but in advanced areas in Business and Engineering it is hard work for everyone - this is the same with a French speaking Swiss as it is for a Vietnamese.

2. The maths score varies greatly and poses quite serious problems. The interesting difference some of us have noted is with some of the Indian students - the explanations is that their highly/over qualified high school teachers are very advanced as there is an oversupply of them arising from a lack of work opportunities in University. Their strengths in Calculus and Physics requires them to be streamed, which is a refreshing problem.

 

IELTS provides separate band scores, and an institution can require specific scores for reading, writing etc, all in the Academic stream, not the General stream, as required.

Cheers,

George

 

1. The issues are currently being looked at from what I am told.

2. I still hold to the belief that you can't judge the quality of a research program/component by its costings as it could and sometime is, subsidised.

3. There clearly are issues arising from quality variations due to the offshore operation being differential to that onshore, and this have been raised in Government quality reviews. Similarly we do have one situation I am aware of, where even onshore, the remote campus for the Internationals is a different one to that in the same city for the locals, and I won't say more ...

4. I will take up your offer to discuss assessment methodology as I am currently recommencing a 3-4 year research based program in this very area. It was the majority of my work in my MEd and also in my non-RA EdD. It is a totally Government funded program within a highly reputable university out here - I will not bother this forum with it, so will communicate with you offline if that is OK.

 

...and what do I do with a general stream score? ... and the only suitable method of an applicant's cumminication when he wants to find where the dunny is, is to jump up and down in one spot to communicate that ?

You know what I am talking about - no?

 

Off-line discussion on pedagogy

Peter,

I welcome a discussion on pedagogy and assessment with you (or anybody else), on or off-line.

For space considerations, I suggest you use my EBS e-mail addresss:

[email protected]

Before Edinburgh Business School was formed in 1995 as the Graduate School of Business of Heriot-Watt University, we were the Esmee Fairbairn Research Centre at Heriot-Watt University and we specialised in research into how managers learn and what they needed to learn to be better managers. All research funds were raised from business, government contracts and charitable trusts (no subsidies from either the University or the tax payer).

It was from this work from the late 70s that we developed the pedagogy of our distance learning (DL) management programme, a variant on the more common Distance Teaching (DT) mode of tuition (often mis-named DL by those who have not realised that there is a difference between DL and DT, the latter being more closer aligned to Campus Teaching (CT)).

Hence, as your views are research based, we should be able to enjoy a fruitful exchange of views, without rancour.

Kind regards