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Prestigious Australian university may introduce compulsory English courses for foreign students

Xinhua, August 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Compulsory English language courses for international students may be introduced at the prestigious University of Sydney Business School after more than 400 students failed a core unit of their masters degrees.

USYD School of Business Deputy Dean (Education) Professor John Shields told Fairfax Media the failure rate in the critical thinking unit in previous years had "generally been quite high" between 15 and 20 per cent but there were "enormous concerns" after a substantial increase in the numbers of students not passing - 37 percent of over 1,200 students.

Fairfax Media reported on Friday 12 percent of students also failed the Succeeding in Business course; both courses are required to complete a Master of Commerce and a Master of Professional Accounting.

The students have accused the University of Sydney of unfairly failing the students, which was strongly denied.

In many cases, students' pre-exam marks were much higher than the mark they scored in the exam, suggesting either "extreme exam anxiety" or "undue assistance", Shields said, suggesting ghostwriting and poor English skills could be to blame.

"We can catch and kill plagiarism with the touch of a button with Turnitin (plagiarism detection software)," Shields said, adding "Plagiarism is not where the major problem is, it is ghostwriting."

The school now requires all students to undertake a mandatory final exam to pass the course following the Fairfax Media investigation of the "MyMaster" ghostwriting cheating scandal uncovered in 2014 that affected almost 1,000 students from 16 Australian universities.

"The decision was taken that we need to be seen to be enforcing the importance of academic standards," Shields said, noting "If a student isn't demonstrating a sufficient level of proficiency in a final exam, we shouldn't be passing them (in that unit)."

Shields said the business school expects its international students to achieve high scores in English language tests, however there is no compulsory course to ensure English language skills improved if required.

"We need to do what we can to support students and there will be some students referred to extra support (following a test in the first week), and we are looking at making that support mandatory," Shields said. Endi