Oxbridge "MA" to be scrapped?

Privilege Axed

The Government scrapped the Oxbridge College Fee. Now they want to take our MAs. Helen Massy-Beresford and James Milford report

http://www.oxfordstudent.com/1999-10-21/news/1

 

Don't know if it still goes on but Edinburgh Uni gave an MA one year after graduation for a BA on some courses at least. Even if you were unemployed all you needed was a BA and a year later along came the MA.

Edinburgh Uni also award an MA (honours) for some undergraduate degrees instead of a BA.

 

I wonder what they mean by "organizational tool"?

 

MA (oxon)

Sounds like the QAA is doing a good job!
roy maybery

 

I agree. It is simply immoral (IMHO) for someone to list an Oxbridge MA as an academic qualification on their CV when it is clearly not one. I have seen this done more then once.

The real sad part is that people who actually earned their Masters degree could very well lose out on a job to someone with an unearned Oxbridge MA.

This is no better then buying an MA from a diploma mill and then presenting it as an academic qualification.

 

Nonsense, Frankie. The first degree in all the pre-Reformation universities in what is now the United Kingdom was and still is (in the Arts, that is, not Science and not Divinity, both of which were historically post-graduate) the MA. At St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, one (now) gets the MA after 4 years, as a first degree. At Oxford and Cambridge, one has to wait a certain number of terms (sorry, I forget, and can't be bothered to look it up) until the BA becomes an MA. It all has to do with ancient regulations regarding voting in Convocation (and, back in the days when Universities had MPs, for Parliament). The MA subsumes the BA: any "immorality" lies in listing both degrees, for one is either one or the other, and never both. (A friend reports that a colleague at his expensive private school got the extra pay for a having a master's degree for his MTheol from St Andrews. It's a first degree -- but then again, so is the Doctor of Pharmacy.)

 

Re: jon porter

Well, it is a first degree. And so is a DPharm in the US. As is an MMath in England. Misunderstandings abroad are not really my concern.

An examining body in the Commonwealth should know an Oxbridge (or St Andrews) MA is a first undergraduate degree.

Yes there are problems in terminology. I have an MPhil. How many years of study did it entail? How long was the thesis? Or did I write a dissertation? Is it really a failed PhD? (by the way, mine isn't) Was there coursework involved or not? Like Republican and Democrat in the United States, it can mean different things at different times and in different places. (To confuse things further, if I went back to St Andrews and did another one, it would be called something else now; and at Edinburgh it would be an MSc [at least the last time I checked]; and at Nottingham an MA). And an Oxford BLitt, depending on when it was awarded, is not all that different from a DPhil. Or very different.

You are accusing someone of fraud for following a practice established long before, say, the European settlement of New Zealand, and asking, no, demanding, consistency where there simply isn't any.

 

jon porter

Oh please! The Oxbridge MA is a "First Degree?"

Another Degreeinfo poster pointed out previously...one individual actually went as far as to present his Oxford BA AND his MA as academic qualifications.

http://www.nzqa.co.nz/

According to this:

http://nzqa.co.nz/assessment.html

This individual did not present his Oxford MA as a "first degree" but presented it as an additional degree to his BA as the NZQA assessed BOTH degrees. Strange how a non-existant BA was assessed when the MA is allegedly the only degree awarded?

After reading the links I just provided...can you not see the problems that can arise?

 

Jon

Nice try but the M.A. is awarded after several years after course completion, is paid for and requires no graduate level study.

The fact is the character received full credit for his 3-year Oxbridge “first degree” he was pissed off because they did not recognize his M.A. as a graduate level academic qualification.

Again, nice try. But if you look at the assessment letters you will clearly see that he received full academic credit for his taught BA. He simply did not receive credit for an untaught purchased MA.

He tried to present an untaught, unexamed, purchased M.A. as a legitimate academic qualification after he already received full credit for his “first degree,” his BA. What would you call it?

 

The Dearing Commission had a lot to say on the subject of the uniformity of the meaning of academic titles. Some excerpts:

10.10 At present, there is no consistent rationale for the structure or nomenclature of awards across higher education...

There is considerable confusion about the 'M' (Masters) title which is awarded for a variety of types of programmes. For example, the awarding of a Masters degree can be_for:

the fourth year (or the fifth year in Scotland) of an undergraduate programme – essentially advanced undergraduate work (MEng etc.);

a postgraduate conversion programme (where the standard of the programme is sometimes below that of an undergraduate programme in the same subject);

an undergraduate degree awarded by one of the four Scottish ancient universities;

a specialist programme of one/two years in duration (such as the MSc, MA);

no additional work, as in the Oxbridge tradition.

10.11 Not surprisingly, the Harris report on postgraduate education (see also Chapter 11) concluded that, although there had always been diversity in postgraduate titles, it had reached the point of being unhelpful, and that in a number of cases it was positively misleading...

10.15 A number of organisations have proposed the development of a framework to provide clarity on levels of achievement and to show the progression pathways for students. The Royal Society, in its report 'Higher Education Futures', proposed a qualification structure...

10.16 The Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC), as part of its work on the standards of degrees, recommended the development of a consistent awards framework, possibly linked to credits and levels...

In its evidence to us, Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) called for:
'The long-term goal for the UK must be a new education and training framework encompassing all post-16 further and higher level training and qualifications...

10.17 We agree with those who have represented the need for a framework of qualifications providing greater clarity to the meaning of awards at the higher levels, and we have addressed the nature of a national framework...

Recommendation 22
We recommend that the Government, the representative bodies, the Quality Assurance Agency, other awarding bodies and the organisations which oversee them, should endorse immediately the framework for higher education qualifications that we have proposed.


http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/

 

Re: Jon

The fees paid are token. Six years after first term of registration if two years have passed since graduation.

Well, he shouldn't be, because it is not.

I didn't look all that closely. As I have twice said, the Oxbridge MA is an undergraduate degree.

The MA is a legitimate academic qualification. If he is representing it to be an earned postgraduate degree, than he's playing fast and loose with the regulations. This being a public forum, I'll just leave it at that...

 

See my point...people can easily abuse this tradition. Oxford does offer a BA and then years later will bestow an MA if it is paid for and certain non-academic criteria is met.

It is not hard to imagine that some bloke desperate for a great job may decide to present this MA as an academic qualification to bolster his application.

Think about it...If an MA is a "first degree" then why would Oxford offer a BA as a "first degree" as well for the exact same program?

 

Awright, you two. Now that you've dragged New Zealand into this...paging Dr Hayes, paging Dr Hayes!

 

(Text left in because of degreeinfo dating & timing issues)

Frankie,

That's the way it is. A first degree at an ancient Scottish university is an MA. A first degree at Oxford eventually becomes an MA. A four-year degree in Math at Nottingham is an MMath. A first degree in pharmacy that takes 6 years in the US is a DPharm. Get over it. I've done my best to explain it, but I really can't be bothered to continue this with someone who, from his own comments, has no understanding of the inconsistencies of British academia.

I'm done with this thread. Frankie, if you want to continue this, lets take it to e-mail.

 

Too late to fix typo. Deal with it babies, deal with it.

(Footnote: John Fisher, Professor of Classics at Wabash College. "Our prayers are always thine...")

 

I am enamoured with the fact that the Master of Laws degree at Oxford is the "Bachelor of Civil Law" or B.C.L. for common law lawyers and the Master of Law for civil law lawyers...

 

Actually, it's the Magister Juris, or MJur.

 

Although "that's the way it is", apparently it's not the way that it's going to remain, judging by the first post in this thread. Efforts are underway to bring greater consistency to the meaning of British academic titles.

That's rather condescending. I think that Frankie understands the inconsistencies well, but believes (as I do) that they can be misleading and possess the potential for abuse.

The Dearing Committee (who presumably understood British higher education) agreed, leading to the current efforts by the QAA to institute a national qualifications framework that were referred to in the original post.

 

The sad part is some British tertiary education proponents cannot debate this issue in a civil manner for very long.

Some of them have this elitist mindset that they know all and that anyone who rightfully questions the flaws in their educational system is either ignorant or below them. Sad.

I believe that one can earn a MPhil alongside of either degree?

 

I think you need to complete the "taught masters degree", BCL or MJur, before embarking on the research degree programmes. That's how it is at the University of London, anyway. You complete the LL.M. then apply for the M. Phil and, in the midst of that programme, you can be admited to candidacy for the D. Phil. There is no coursework requirement for the research degrees, I believe.