Why International Students are at Greater Risk of Failure · Why International Students are at...

Why International Students are at Greater Riskof Failure

Michael John Paton

VOLUME 6, NUMBER 6

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Why International Students are at Greater Risk of FailureAn Inconvenient Truth

Michael John Paton, University of Sydney, Australia

Abstract: This paper considers the reasons for the comparatively negative progression rates for international students inthe Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney over the past five years in light of data from the MASUS(measuring academic skills of university students) diagnostic language test, the Student at Risk program run in the Facultyover the past three years and the seventeen years experience of the author working in the area of language and learning inAustralian universities. The results show that although language is a major factor, other factors ranging from governmentpolicy to time management have a marked effect on the relationship between academic standards and the culturally diverseuniversity.

Keywords: Language and Learning, Students at Risk

Introduction

AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES HAVEbeen admitting students from backgroundsother than English since the 1950s and1960s with the advent of the Colombo Plan.

Since then more and more students from a non-English speaking background (NESB) have come toAustralia for their tertiary education because of thepositive reputation of Australian universities, andmore recently because of the relationship created bythe Australian Government between permanent res-idency and Australian academic qualifications. Thispaper considers the issues raised by large numbersof international NESB students at Australian univer-sities by investigating the situation in the Faculty ofEconomics and Business at the University of Sydneyin regards to the student profile, data on language

diagnostic tests for both undergraduate and postgradu-ate students, data on students at risk of failure, effortsmade by the Faculty to address international studentprogression rates and the immigration policy of thepresent Australian Government.

Student Profile – Faculty of Economicand BusinessThe University of Sydney is considered to be one ofthe leading universities in the southern hemisphereand is often counted amongst the top fifty universitiesin the world. Because of this reputation and otherfactors discussed below, its Faculty of Economicsand Business has seen a steady rise in the numbersof international students enrolling in its degree pro-grams over recent years. Table 1 below shows thesignificance of this rise in terms of student numbers.

Table 1: Faculty of Economics and Business International Student Load 1999-2004

% of University’s total international stu-dent load

% of Faculty’s total studentload

International student load(EFTSU)

Year

28178291999312311182000342914822001393521232002434230552003434432792004

It can be seen from Table 1 above that the interna-tional student profile in the Faculty of Economicsand Business is changed markedly over the past fewyears to reflect more the percentages of international

students seen in historically more internationally fo-cussed universities in Australia such as the Universityof New South Wales and Monash University.

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Moreover, this rise in international student num-bers in the Faculty has been most marked in post-graduate (PG) coursework degree programs as canbe gauged from a 2003 snapshot of the comparative

percentages given in Table 2 below of the percentageof international to local students in the various typesof Faculty programs.

Table 2: Percentage of International to Local Students (2003)

% IntlTotalInt'l29%47691384Undergraduate19%10820Research72%1045753Postgraduate Coursework47%448210Other Postgraduate37%63702367Total

The reasons for the marked interest shown by inter-national students in the Faculty’s postgraduate coursework programs will be discussed more fully in thesecrion entitled issues but suffice to say here it isstrongly related to the Australian Government’s im-migration policy.

To have some understanding of the range ofcountries from which the Faculty draws its interna-

tional student body, Table 4 below lists the maincountries of origin of undergraduate internationalstudents. This list is fairly indicative of the weightingof country of origin of the international students inthe Faculty, with China having by far the largestnumber of students.

Table 4: International Undergraduate Students by Country (as at 21 February 2003)

Total = 910Countries with ≥ 10 students enrolled:

324China104Malaysia100Singapore90Hong Kong62Indonesia38Korea South22United Kingdom19Vietnam16Norway15India13Taiwan10Russia10Thailand

Table 4 above indicates that there are large numbersof international students in the Faculty who probablyhave not studied in an English speaking environmentbefore and are certainly from an NESB, such as thestudents from China Indonesia and South Korea.However, this does not show the full extent of NESBstudents in the Faculty. Australia is very much amulticultural nation and the local student profile isindicative of the variety of the backgrounds of the

people of the country. Table 5 below gives some in-dication of the language background of the localstudents where it can be seen that a good twenty fourpercent of the local students are to varying degreesof a NESB. Such students, dubbed ANESB (Australi-an non-English speaking background) by Bartlettand Chanock (2003), are not the subject of this paperbut this percentage should shed extra light on thefollowing discussion.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE DIVERSITY, VOLUME 6102

Table 5: Country of Birth of Local Students in Bachelor of Commerce 2003

Total number of students = 1165Students born in Australia = 753Students born in countries with languages other than English as the official state language = 274 (i.e. 24% oftotal)

MASUS TestIn 1993, the Learning Centre at the University ofSydney was commissioned by the Academic Boardto design a diagnostic instrument to measure students'academic writing. MASUS (the Measurement ofAcademic Skills of University Students) was de-veloped and funded in response to the University’sconcern that despite high TERs (Tertiary EntranceRanks), students were failing to achieve satisfactoryprogress through their degree program because ofpoor literacy skills. MASUS requires students writea short essay or other genre (e.g. report) based onsome disciplinary content. One of the hallmarks ofthe MASUS process is that it does not test students’content knowledge typically; the content that studentsare required to write about is covered prior to thetest being undertaken and students are given clearinstructions about exactly what is required of themin terms of genre and performance criteria. It assessesthe student's ability to write about a given body ofknowledge in a reasoned and critical way, togetherwith their ability use the language resources appro-priate for the required task. Their writing is ratedfrom 4 (excellent) to 1 (inadequate) on each of 4main criteria: information processing, use of appro-priate academic English, grammatical correctness,and structure and development of the text. (Bonannoand Jones, 1997). Students are considered to needsome form of help in these areas if they are rated atthe level of 1 or 2.

The MASUS test provides a literacy profile of thestudent cohort, identifies students at risk, providesa starting point from which to integrate the teachingof academic literacy into units of study, gives earlyformative feedback on the strengths and weaknessesof individual student responses and gives studentsinformation on the characteristics of academic writ-ing that are valued in a specific discipline.

Since 1993 MASUS has been used in the Univer-sity of Sydney with a number of departments, withover 7,000 students (mainly first years) participating.It has also been adapted for use in other universitiesin Australia and in the United Kingdom. It has beenshown to be both a very valid and very reliable lan-guage diagnostic instrument.

The commencing undergraduate accounting unitof study, Accounting 1A (ACCT1001), was one ofthe first units of study to employ the MASUS in1993, and since then the Faculty has used MASUSin both ACCT1001 and CLAW1001 (CommercialTransactions, the commencing commercial law un-dergraduate unit of study). CLAW1001 first usedMASUS in 1995. Thus, a great deal of data has beenaccumulated on the academic language ability of ourundergraduate cohort.

The last time the MASUS test was done inACCT1001 and CLAW1001 was 2004. Table 6 be-low summarises the results of the students needingsome form or remediation with their academic writ-ing.

Table 6: Number of Undergraduate Students Identified as Unsatisfactory by the MASUS Diagnostic in2004

CLAW1001ACCT10015631063number of students158281Students identified unsatisfactory28%26%Percentage unsatisfactory

It can be seen from Table 6 that approximately onequarter of the undergraduate students in the Facultywere considered to have unsatisfactory academicEnglish language skills. Previous MASUS tests showthat this percentage is slightly on the rise but stillquite typical of the undergraduate cohort’s Englishlanguage ability. What is also typical is the fact thatapproximately eighty percent of the students found

to be were international students (Ahmed and Paton,2004).

As noted above, MASUS has been used in theFaculty at the undergraduate level since 1993.However, it was not until 2006 that MASUS wasused to test the academic English language skills ofthe postgraduate cohort. Again an accounting unitof study, ACCT6001 Intermediate Financial Report-

103MICHAEL JOHN PATON

ing, was chosen for the pilot. This time, however, itwas not a commencing unit of study, but a unit un-dertaken by students who generally already had atleast one semester of study in the Faculty. Table 7

below summarises the need for English languageremediation in ACCT6001 (Bonnano and English,2006).

Table 7: Number of Postgraduate Students Identified as Unsatisfactory by the MASUS Diagnostic in2006

ACCT6001Total number of students = 278Number of students Identified as unsatisfactory = 246Percentage unsatisfactory= 88%

It can be seen from the above table that eighty eightpercent of a class of 278 needed some form of aca-demic English language help. This shows that thelanguage situation in the postgraduate courseworkunits is much more negative than in the undergradu-ate courses. However, if the language backgroundof these 278 students is considered this situation isunderstandable. Only seventeen of these studentshad English as their first language and a full 239 ofthe students had some dialect of Chinese as their firstlanguage. Clearly the Faculty’s postgraduatecoursework programs have become popular withstudents from China.

Students at RiskSince 2002, the Faculty has run a ‘student at risk’program to attempt to identify students who arefailing sufficiently early for some positive interven-tion. In this process, students at risk of failure aredefined as those in their first semester of study in theFaculty who had failed 50% or more of their enrolledSemester 1 units of study. They are identified via aStudent System report with the major selectionparameter being grades of F (Fail) or AF (AbsentFail) in 50% or more of their enrolled Semester 1Units of Study. Students who are identified as being‘at risk’ are then contacted and advised of the variousprograms and services within the University com-munity that might help them progress more success-fully with their studies (Beatson, 2003).

The data on students at risk give a valuable insightinto the comparative lack of progression of interna-tional students in the Faculty. In the pilot programin 2002, of the 410 students identified as at risk 211were international fee-paying students (51.46%) and199 were local HECS students (48.54%) (Beatson,2003). Similar statistics can be seen from both the2004 and 2006 data on undergraduate at risk students,which show that in 2004 106 local students (41% oftotal at risk) and 152 international students (59% oftotal at risk) were at risk, and in 2006 155 local(50%) and 151 international students (50%) were atrisk. Thus, there does seem to be some fluctuation

in comparative progression rates between internation-al and local students but the constant is that interna-tional students are progressing more slowly thanlocal students.

‘Problems’ with International Students– Other DataThe problems with international students in theFaculty of Economics and Business postgraduatecourses have been particularly documented by aca-demics in the discipline of Finance, perhaps becauseof its greater difficulty in the postgraduate programwhere econometrics and economics are co-requisitesrather than pre-requisites as in the undergraduateprogram. I received the email below from a Financelecturer in the middle of Semester 2 2003:

“I am concerned with the level of cheating inexams in Master of Commerce classes. I haveobserved it my colleagues have observed it andstudents have told me about it across all theMaster of Commerce classes I have been in-volved in. Is there something that can be doneabout this ex ante rather than ex post? Some ofit is quite blatant and on the basis of hearsayappears to be more common amongst the nonresident students.” (Paton, 2004: 5)

Discussion with core postgraduate program lecturersfrom other disciplines confirmed this lecturer’s con-cerns, and with the agreement of the postgraduateAssociate Dean I addressed all of the core postgradu-ate units on the University’s policy on academichonesty.

In Semester 1 2004, I received an email on theproblems with international students from the Chairof Discipline of Finance with the concerns of thelecturer forwarded. These two emails are set out be-low:

“I am forwarding the following email becauseit is a cause of serious concern to me and to thestaff involved in teaching the course. It is not


only (lecturer’s name) who has experienced theproblem, and on the basis of discussion withother staff members teaching this course, ifanything she has understated the problem. Letus be clear that individual students had to beassisted by the lecturers to complete a task asbasic as putting their names on the answersheets and even then some had difficulty com-pleting that simple task. I want to prepare theground in advance as I anticipate that failurerates in (Postgraduate finance unit of study)may be high as a consequence of these diffi-culties.” (Chair of Discipline)

“I am writing to express my concern aboutthe English standard of many of our Master ofCommerce students. Last week we held an inclass test. During this process it became veryclear that quite a number of the students hadsuch poor English that they did not understandour instructions about filling in the answersheet. When speaking individually to a numberof students to help them this problem becameeven more apparent. I wonder how these stu-dents can be expected to learn the material weare teaching and to pass the course when theyeven can't understand the instructions on howto complete the answer sheet? I'm not sure whatwe can do to address this situation. We haveadvised the students that they can attend theLearning Centre if they have difficulties, butobviously it is difficult to ensure that those withthe biggest problems do this. Any suggestionsthat you have would be appreciated.” (Postgradu-ate finance lecturer) (Paton, 2004: 5)

It should be noted that this lecturer was nominatedfor and went very close to being awarded a FacultyTeaching Prize for 2002. The lecturer was nominatedby a number of international students who commen-ted on the lecturer’s caring attitude.

A further instance of problems associated with thelarge influx of international students was seen withthe very high failure rate in ACCT1002 in SummerSchool 2003. In previous years failure rates in Fac-ulty units of study in Summer School were eitherequal to or much less than those in the normalsemesters varying from 5-20%. However, the failurerate in ACCT1002 was 35%. One of the two lecturersfor the unit had taught it for the two years previouslywith low failure rates in each year and has a verygood record as a teacher in that he has been nomin-ated by many students for the Faculty Teaching prizeover the last two years especially by internationalNESB students due to his inclusive style. Thus, I amconvinced the problems lay more with the studentbody in the unit than with the teaching methodology.As the Deputy Academic Director of the SummerSchool at the time, I requested reasons for the high

failure rate from the lecturers involved and the fol-lowing points were forwarded to me. Particular atten-tion should be paid to the second point. Internationalstudents previously had comprised between 30 and50% of Summer School classes:

“The failure rate is really 35%, as the other7% did not turn up to the final exam and hencecannot pass the course;

The student cohort appeared to consist of ap-proximately 95% international students whohad difficulty providing answers in the examsto questions that required a discussion/interpret-ation of the material presented. We would behappy to provide copies of the exam scripts thatshow the types of answers we received;

The failure rate reflected the poor attendanceat lectures and many students had problemswith arriving on time for both lectures and theexam. I have also had similar experience inprior years. We feel many students still havethe attitude that as the University is on vacationthey can take things easy;

We marked the majority of both the mid-ses-sion and final exam and we wanted to ensurestudents only passed where they exhibited suf-ficient knowledge to be able to cope with furtherstudy in Accounting;

We do not believe that the level of difficultyof the exam was any different to that set inprevious sessions;

Some students enrol in more than one Sum-mer School unit (at this and other Universities).We do not believe they show the level of com-mitment required to complete satisfactorilymore than one course especially given the in-tense nature of Summer School teaching;

This Summer School was improved by offer-ing students small group tutorials in addition tolectures. We found many students needed tochange their tutorial due to work obligations.We suspect that many students cannot cope withboth working and studying over Summer.

Students did not make use of the ability toseek help with the content of the Course. Ourconsultation times were rarely used even justbefore the exams when we offered additionaltimes. We also made available to students aBlackboard Discussion Board and this was usedsparingly.” (Paton, 2004: 6-7).

A final set of data which indicates the AustralianUniversity system’s failure of international studentsis set out in Table 8 below. This shows that the greatmajority of international students achieve either afailure, pass or credit for their university studies.Compared to local students, international studentshave much fewer high achievers as indicated by


percentages of high distinctions and distinctions.This would seem to be due to lack of academicEnglish but this will be discussed in the issues sectionbelow. It should be noted that although the following

table of results is for all Summer School students,some 59% of these undertook units of study in theFaculty of Economics and Business (Sait, 2003).

Table 8: Comparison of Local and International Students within Grades in the University of SydneySummer School 2003

% oftotalCountGrade Loc/IntLocal/Int

of 1926 International registrations received gradeof HD3.2%31%61HD InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of HD7.5%69%137HD LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof D11.4%39%220D InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of D18.8%61%345D LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof CR23.8%49%458CR InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of CR26.3%51%483CR LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof P41.6%57%801P InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of P33.2%43%607P LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof PCON0.1%7%1

PCON Internation-alInternational

of 1831 Local registrations received grade ofPCON0.8%93%14PCON LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof F11.7%62%225F InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of F7.4%38%136F LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof AF1.5%45%29AF InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of AF1.9%55%35AF LocalLocalof 1926 International registrations received gradeof INC0.9%39%18INC InternationalInternationalof 1831 Local registrations received grade of INC1.5%61%28INC LocalLocal

Office for Learning and TeachingTo cope with the comparatively negative situationwith international students described above a meetingin April 2002 of the Pro Vice Chancellor (Teachingand Learning), Pro Vice Chancellor (College of Hu-manities and Social Sciences), and the Dean, Associ-ate Dean (undergraduate) and Associate Dean(postgraduate) of the Faculty of Economics andBusiness decided to establish a Centre for Teachingand Learning in the Faculty, later to be known as theOffice for Learning and Teaching (OLTEB). Theoriginal brief of the Office was especially to helpNESB students with their language issues.

However, just after this decision was made theFaculty embarked upon a campaign to gain accredit-ation with major business school accreditation

agencies in the United States of America and Europe,the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools ofBusiness (AACSB) and the European Quality Im-provement System (EQUIS) respectively. For thiscampaign to be successful, the Faculty executive sawan urgent need for the Faculty to improve itseLearning systems. As a consequence, a Directorwith a background in eLearning was employed tohead the office and thus eLearning has been the ma-jor thrust of both student and academic support. Be-sides the Director, the Office presently employs: aproject officer with two administrative staff, aneLearning academic with three administrative staff,a peer assisted learning and peer mentoring groupconsisting of one academic with three administrativestaff, an academic teaching adviser, and an academic


language & learning adviser. Needless to say, theFaculty was able to gain accreditation with AACSBand EQUIS. However, even with a staff of fourteen,the Office still only employs one staff member toaid NESB students with their academic language.

Even with this criticism it should be pointed outthat there have been some very positive outcomesfrom the creation of this office. For example, theadvent of OLTEB has seen a slight improvement inprogression rates of all types of student across theboard. Nevertheless, in terms of the issues discussedbelow, I would argue that this method of studentsupport is typical of the Australian university com-munity when faced with the challenges of a largecohort of international NESB students. There is atendency to pour resources into comparatively easyissues but shy away from what such students needmost: enhancement of academic English languageskills, especially at the sentence level.

IssuesThe issues related to international students are man-ifold. Perhaps the most discussed, particularly in re-lation to East and Southeast Asian students in Aus-tralia, is cultural difference. Academics such as Bal-lard and Clanchy (1997) have pointed to the need toimbue international students from Asia studying inAustralia with the discourse of critical analysis inEnglish. Other researchers such as Kutieleh andEgege (2003) have gone so far as to argue that critic-al thinking is specifically Western and thus transitionprograms in Australia for international Asian studentsneed to incorporate critical thinking into first yearprograms without taking either an assimilationist ora deficit approach. This is similar to the argumentsof Atkinson (1997) and Fox (1994) that criticalthinking is incompatible with Asian cultural attitudes.Such reasoning, however, smacks of the culturalchauvinism of the various colonial powers of thenineteenth century in their quest to fulfill the ‘whiteman’s burden’. All cultures have a history of criticalthinking. It is how humanity survives as a species.An indication of the continuum of critical thinkingacross all human cultures can be seen in the develop-ment of freestyle swimming. In Europe from the 17th

century, breaststroke was known as the ‘scientific’method of swimming. This name was discarded inthe late nineteenth century when a Solomon Islandercame to Sydney in Australia to teach the locals whatbecame known as the Australian crawl, later to becalled freestyle (Colwin, 2002).

In terms of East Asian culture, it can be arguedthat the give and take of ideas due to critical thinkinghas been a continuum across Eurasia, starting at thelatest with Marco Polo. East Asian cultures havelong history of critical thought. (Paton, 2005; Volet,

1999), and it is not widely known that two of therenowned early modern philosophers of science,Leibnitz and Spinoza, both used traditional Chinesethought as part of their conception of science.Moreover Francis Bacon saw modern civilisation asbeing based on gunpowder, paper money and thecompass, not realising at the time that each of thesehad been invented and had been in use in China forseveral hundred years (Hobson, 2004).

Another important issue with NESB internationalstudents is the argument that English language isonly one of the many factors that need to be con-sidered. For example, Robertson et al. (2000) arguethat besides language, the cultural, social and admin-istrative aspects of the international student experi-ence are crucial factors in international student suc-cess. This is borne out by evidence from our S@Rsurvey which indicates that ‘time management’ is asmajor a factor in failure as is language. For interna-tional students, reading between the lines, however,time management in this case seems to be the diffi-culty of balancing a full time university degree withthe full time work needed to pay for such a degree,especially those students who come from less mon-etarily well endowed countries such as China. Nev-ertheless, I would still argue that English languagecompetence is the fundamental issue for success atAustralian universities, especially at the sentencelevel, because of the ‘fineness of meaning’ necessaryto academic discourse in whatever language.

This last point above is very much related to thenext important issue in relationship to internationalstudents at universities in Australia, the perceivedrole of universities in society. It would seem thatmost government and employer groups consider themain role of universities in Australia to be that of‘finishing schools’, i.e. places to hone young peoplefor the professional work force. However, from theperspective of history and philosophy of science,universities were originally established to be institu-tions to both hold and ‘add to the knowledge’ of theworld. I would argue that this is still their major role.University is the major institution in society that en-ables its scholars to strive to understand the worldas objectively as possible through the use of criticalthinking. Moreover, from the academic perspective,the major aim of university coursework education isto imbue students with the tools for such objectiveunderstanding in whatever field they choose to studyand with the idea that knowledge is a continuum.Those who see universities as finishing schools,however, generally think of knowledge as being afixed commodity that can be used to churn out vari-ous professionals for the workforce.

This commoditisation of university study is partic-ularly relevant to the issue of international students.In Australia at the moment tertiary education seems


to be perceived by the Government as an immigrationcommodity. With the Independent Overseas Studentvisa (subclass 880) the Australian Government hasset up a system whereby students can gain permanentresidency if they study in a professional area that theGovernment has chosen to be useful to the society.These occupation areas are known as the SkilledOccupation List, which entails the following occupa-tions: accountant, architect, chiropractor, computingprofessional, dentist, engineer, interpreter, solicitor,medical practitioner, registered nurse, occupationaltherapist, optometrist, pharmacist, physiotherapist,psychologist, surveyor, radiographer, teacher, vet,and welfare worker. The relationship to universitystudy requires the student to have ‘completed anAustralian Masters or Honours degree (at least uppersecond class level) at an Australian educational insti-tution while physically present in Australia and priorto completing the Masters or Honours degree, youwere awarded an Australian bachelor degree as aresult of at least one year full-time study whilephysically present in Australia and the total periodof full-time study in Australia was at least two (2)years (two (2) academic years).’ (Australian Depart-ment of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, 2006). Onthe surface, such tying of specific professional studyto immigration seems laudatory but the negativeconsequences far outweigh any positive outcomesfrom this attempt at social engineering.

The first negative consequence of this immigrationpolicy is what I call the ‘accountancy problem’. Itshould be noted that an international student studyingaccountancy only takes four years (three years in anundergraduate degree and one year in a postgraduatedegree) to achieve qualification for permanent resid-ency. Many of the other occupations listed in theSkilled Occupation List require a longer commitmentto study and those that do not, such as teaching ornursing, are generally not perceived by internationalstudents to be sufficiently financially lucrative towarrant the substantial financial outlays necessaryfor overseas tertiary study. Thus, an accountancydegree has become the most popular method for in-ternational students to obtain permanent residencyin Australia. Moreover, the popularity of accountinghas given a great boost to the power in the universitysystem of faculties of business and commercethroughout Australia because the funds that thesefaculties are gaining from their international studentsare becoming to a large extent the basis of universityfunding.

Again from the perspective of history and philo-sophy of science, this shift towards business schoolsbeing the power base of universities could have verynegative consequences in the long term. Academicfunding based on the market could see the value ofknowledge being equated with private monetary

profit. Thus, what is the most meaningful or usefulover the long term could be replaced by a search forideas that turn a short term profit. This ‘logic of shortterm advantage’ has been shown by Elvin (2004) inhis study of the environmental history of China tohave a disastrous effect on humanity over the longterm. Nevertheless, the Australian Governmentpolicy has faculties of science floundering due tolack of funding whereas faculties of business flour-ish. For instance, the Faculty of Economics andBusiness at Sydney has been so successful in recentyears because of international student numbers thatin 2005 four new professors of accounting wereemployed boost the Faculty’s academic standingwhereas there is not one professor of history andphilosophy of science in all of Australia. This isclearly indicative that faculties with accounting asone of their disciplines are given undue academicweight.

A further negative impact on tying accounting toimmigration is the negative effect that this can haveon student motivation and subsequent academicsuccess. Many international; students are studyingaccountancy at university to gain permanent resid-ency when they actually would rather be studyingsome other subject with a consequent negative effecton their ability to pass. Anecdotal evidence for thiscomes from my experience running the ‘Student atRisk’ program in the Faculty over the past four years.One poignant example is that of a young Singaporeanundergraduate student who came to see me at thebeginning of this year. She was a good credit-to-distinction-average student, majoring in marketing.Her parents, however, had insisted that she changeher major to accounting so as to enhance her chancesof obtaining permanent residency. She, therefore,undertook two accounting units of study in the Uni-versity Summer School to catch up on her accountingmajor. Unfortunately, she failed both units miserablyand came to see me at the beginning of semester onein tears because of her distaste for accounting. I ad-vised her to return to marketing as a major and shehas thrived studying in an area that is more suited toher talents and interests. This case study is indicativeof the problems encountered when extrinsic motiva-tional factors are at odds with those of an intrinsicnature. This is especially a problem when studentsare attempting edge of knowledge discourse in anoth-er language than their own and in an area of studyin which they have little interest. Even though thedistant prospect of permanent residency sparks somecatalyst to study, the lack of interest in the subjectmatter can block the motivation to undertake theconsiderable amount of effort needed for NESB in-ternational students to survive in a rigorous universitycourse.


I would of course, however, be remiss if I did notmention as an issue the extremely positive effect thata large diverse international student body has on anyuniversity. Each culture has added to the knowledgeof the world and a great diversity of cultures at auniversity make it very difficult for students to fallinto the mono-cultural chauvinism that was endemicto powerful cultures in the nineteenth century andwhich led to the catastrophic world wars of thetwentieth century. Studying edge of knowledge dis-course with students of many cultures immediatelygives student an understanding of the extent of thecultural basis of knowledge in a very practical way.The present system, however, even though it is at-tracting a large number of international students,does not seem to be having the desired effect in rela-tion to cultural diversity if the example of the PilotPostgraduate MASUS diagnostic is taken into ac-count. Merely considering the language backgroundof the cohort of 278 students is a good indicationthat something is remiss. The mother tongue of sev-enteen of the students was English, seven of the stu-dents Korean, four of the students Arabic, two of thestudents Indonesian, two Thai, two Vietnamese, oneJapanese, but two hundred and thirty nine of thestudents had some form of Chinese as their nativelanguage. I would argue that even though almosttwenty percent of the World’s population speakssome form of Chinese, these student numbers indic-ate almost a mono-cultural Chinese educational en-vironment.

Another issue that should be considered in relationto NESB international students studying in Australiais the ethics of either failing students due to lack ofEnglish skills upon having allowed them to enrolwith low levels of English and/or passing studentswho have not understood the ‘fineness of meaning’necessary for edge of knowledge discourse in anylanguage. The Summer School statistics outlinedpreviously indicate that international students arenot achieving as well as their local counterparts, infact are failing much more readily, seemingly be-cause of lack of the requisite English language skills.The similarity in comparative progression ratesbetween locals and internationals in the Faculty’spost graduate programs, however, indicates eitherthat postgraduate international students do not havethe same study problems due to language as theirundergraduate counterparts or that the criteria usedfor assessment are different for the postgraduatestudents. I would argue that the latter is the case andthat the Faculty is passing students who do not havesufficient language skills for edge of knowledgediscourse. The case study below adds credence tomy argument.

At the end of this semester, two postgraduate in-ternational students were sent to me for counselling

about plagiarism and advice on academic discoursein English. Both were female students, one fromNortheast China and the other from Southwest China.Both had been in Australia for approximately twoyears, and both were in the last semester of a oneand a half year Master of Commerce degree majoringin accounting. That semester, they both took a com-paratively linguistically demanding unit of studyelective option for interest. Surprisingly, accordingto the students, they were confronted in this unit withtheir first solo writing assignment of their degree,all their previous units of study had group assessmenttasks, and so they had no previous opportunity totest their academic English literacy skills. The lin-guistically demanding unit of study chosen had twocompulsory essay assignments as part of its assess-ment criteria. Both students were found to have‘referencing problems’ in for their first essay andwere allowed to resubmit and given 50% for theirattempt. Both still had not learnt sufficient academicEnglish discourse for the second essay. They wereboth found to have used blatant plagiarism and endedup failing the unit. I would argue that neither studentwas equipped with sufficient knowledge of academicEnglish to complete the assessment tasks, but theessay is a powerful learning tool, and to discard sucha form of assessment as seemingly the students’previous units of study had done, is to demean thequality of education provided.

This leads to the question of what Australian uni-versities are trying to achieve with their internationalstudent programs. There is a paper by Olsen et al.(2005) presently being circulated around the univer-sity system, which claims to have undertaken re-search into progression rates for 338,445 students in22 universities in Australia. The paper finds thatthere is no significant difference in progression ratesbetween local and international students. However,close inspection of this paper reveals that it is perhapsmore an exercise in propaganda than any serious at-tempt at educational research. It appears that the pa-per was in no way peer reviewed before publicationand there is very little evidence of a sound socialscience methodology. As a University medal winningsocial science research student stated when forward-ing the paper to me for comment, ‘It is obviouslydeficient as a study for a number of reasons: (Ithought the analysis was frankly one dimensionaland the whole thing could have been thrown togetherin a few days), but I thought you might like to see itanyway. I certainly wouldn't be awarding first classhonours’ (personal correspondence, November,2006). Moreover, the academic credentials and themotivation of the major author are somewhat ques-tionable. It seems that Olsen’s highest academicqualification is that of a bachelor degree majoringin philosophy; not that there is anything wrong with


a degree in philosophy, it is just that it does not ne-cessarily equate with an ability to do social scienceresearch. Moreover, Olsen does not seem to be at-tached to any Australian university but instead runsa consultancy out of Hong Kong known as StrategyPolicy and Research in Education Limited. One isleft to wonder how he obtained his data particularlywhen one has had experience of the difficulty oftrying to obtain reliable data on such matters fromwithin an Australian university.

Besides this seeming misinformation to lull thosenot at the coal face of university education into afalse sense of security, it is necessary to question themotivation of those setting the international studentagenda. I have coined the term, cultural chauvinism,in previous papers (see Paton 2004 and Paton 2005)to describe the mindset that other cultures than thosestemming from Europe are in some way inferior.The present use of international NESB students tohelp fund Australian tertiary education smackssomewhat of such misguided thinking in that thequality of the educational outcome seems to be takingsecond place to the business aspect of full fee payingstudents without regard for the long term con-sequences both for the individual students and forthe society as a whole.

ConclusionTo conclude, as a passionate supporter of the abilityof ‘southern’ culture to add to the knowledge of theworld, I argue strongly using the evidence above thatthe Australian tertiary education system certainlyhas gone nowhere near solving the problems of dif-ferent languages outlined in the biblical story of theTower of Babel. Moreover, sticking our heads in thesand and trying to wish the problem away will notsolve such problems. The language issues posed byboth local and international NESB students have tobe addressed, especially at sentence level. I stressthe sentence level because from my experienceteaching academic discourse in Australian universit-ies since 1990, I consider that academic ‘genre’ justcannot be done well without sufficient ‘micro’- levelskills, i.e. academic sentence level grammar andvocabulary skills. I add vocabulary because researchby Loewen and Ellis (2005) at the University of

Auckland has shown that the academic achievementof NESB undergraduate students is greatly enhancedby knowledge of Nation’s 2,000 Word List and theUniversity Word List. This focus on grammar andvocabulary should, of course, be linked to the dis-course of the students’ chosen field of study, and notbe extraneous to it, to contextualise the languagelearning process.

The necessary consequence of such a renewedfocus on language would require not only a greatincrease in funding for academic language programsbut also a much greater recognition, both financialand academic, of the positive role that academic‘language teachers’ have in the education of the greatmajority of our international students. I say this in acontext where, because of the lack of funding, thereis a decreasing number of academic language andlearning staff being employed in universities and theacademic status of those staff remaining is underthreat at a number of Australian academic institu-tions. This is particularly poignant when one con-siders that the data in this paper comes from a com-paratively financially endowed faculty in one ofAustralia’s leading universities.

I further argue from the issues discussed abovethat Australian Government policy should not tiespecific university courses to immigration. Such apolicy can only have negative consequences on theAustralian knowledge base in the future. A moreconsidered program would be to tie immigration toacademic ability, no matter what the degree at aquality university, such that an international studentwith a high distinction average would have thegreatest chance of permanent residency whether theirmajor be Classical Greek or Marketing. The cut offfor immigration purposes could be a credit average.

The final conclusion is that the Australian Govern-ment and Australian universities should stop usingthe ‘logic of short term advantage’ as the basis oftertiary education policy. Elvin (2004) has arguedpersuasively, using the example of China, that hu-manity negates the environment and consequentlyitself by concentrating on winning over the shortterm. This seems to be the basis of the present Aus-tralian tertiary education policy and there could bedire consequences if we continue on this path.

References

Ahmed, A., M. Paton, and A. Nadvornikova (2004)‘Viability of the MASUS (Measuring the Academic Skills of UniversityStudents) test carried out in Accounting 1A and Commercial Transactions A in Semester 1 2004’ Report for theFaculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney, December 2004.

Atkinson, D. (1997). ‘A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL’. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 9-37.Australian Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (2006) http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migra-

tion/880/eligibility-age.htm , accesses 7/11/2006.Ballard, B. and J. Clanchy (1997), Teaching International Students: a Brief Guide for Lectures and Supervisors, (Melbourne:

IDPE Australia).


Beatson, Jenny, Benchmarking Project: Teaching and Learning/Students at Risk Final Report, Faculty of Economics andBusiness, University of Sydney, November, 2003.

Bonanno, H. and L. English, (2006) Report on the MASUS Diagnostic Procedure ACCT6001, November 2006, Faculty ofEconomics and Business, University of Sydney.

Bonanno H and Jones J (1997). The MASUS procedure: Measuring the academic skills of University students, LearningCentre, University of Sydney.

Colwin, C., (2002) Breakthrough Swimming (Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics).Elvin, Mark, The Retreat of the Elephants: an Environmental History of China, (New Haven and London: Yale University

Press, 2004)Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the World. National Council of Teachers of English: Urbana, Illinois.Hobson, John M., (2004) The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Loewen, S. and R. Ellis, ‘Second Language Vocabulary and Academic Achievement in Undergraduate University Students’

in E. Manalo & G. Wong-Toi (2005) Communication Skills in University Education: The International Dimension(Auckland: Pearson) pp. 260-278..

Kutieleh, Salah and Sandra Egege (2003). Culture and Knowledge: Teaching Foreign Notions to Foreign Students, workshoppaper presented to the 7TH Pacific Rim First Year in Higher Education Conference: Queensland University ofTechnology.

Olsen, Alan, Z. Burgess and R. Sharma (2005) ‘ The Comparative Academic Performance of International Students ’www.idp.com/aiec/program/Mackintosh%20&%20Olsen%202003.pdf , (accessed 7/11/2006), paper presentedat the Australian International Education Conference 2005.

Paton, M., (2004) International and Non-English Speaking Background Students Discussion paper for the Teaching &Learning Committee, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney.

Paton, M. (2004) "Dragon Veins, Cultural Chauvinism and the Energy of the Land" in Proceedings of the Tenth InternationalConference on the History of Science in China, Harbin, 2004.

Paton, M. (2005) 'Is Critical Analysis Foreign to Chinese Students?' in Communication Skills in University Education: TheInternational Dimension, ed. E. Manalo and G. Wong-Toi, Pearson Education, Auckland, NZ pp. 1-12.

Robertson, Margaret, Martin Line, Susan Jones, Sharon Thomas, (2000) ‘International Students, Learning Environmentsand Perceptions: a case study using the Delphi technique’, Higher Education Research and Development, Volume19, Number 1 / May 1, 2000.

Sait, Jim (2003) Report to the Academic Board on the Operation of the Sydney Summer School Program 2003, Universityof Sydney.

Volet, Simone, (1999), ‘Learning across cultures: appropriateness of knowledge transfer’ International Journal of Educa-tional Research

About the AuthorDr Michael John PatonMichael Paton is the Teaching Quality Fellow in the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney,Australia. He completed his Bachelor of Science (Education) degree in geology at the University of New SouthWales and his Bachelor of Arts (honours) and PhD in Chinese studies at the University of Sydney. Michael’smajor research interest is the history and philosophy of science in China especially focusing on dili (the principlesof the earth) and fengshui. His work and research interests in communication skills deal with their relationshipto culture, critical thinking and knowledge production. He is Vice President (Asia) of the Australasian Associationfor the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science.


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