University of Greenwich
London
WARNING. Greenwich lean time: from The Sunday Times 31/7/11
Caroline Hunter’s daughter has her heart set on becoming an architect. In her first year at Greenwich University in southeast London she thought she was doing well — until last month, when she learnt that the portfolio of work she had submitted had scored just 28%.
Now she is at risk of having to leave her course. And she is not alone. Only 25 of the course’s intake of 142 students submitted design portfolios that reached the 40% pass mark this summer. If the 109 allowed to retake this month do not pass, they will have to abandon their degrees.
Last week Hunter’s worried mother (names have been changed) said: “She has two more weeks to overhaul the work and resubmit, but has been told that if she fails to pull the portfolio up to 40% she will not automatically be able to retake the first year and will have to leave the university.
“It seems to me she should have been aware of this possibility in January, let alone June. She has in fact spent the year thinking she was doing quite well.
“I understand that nearly 75% of the first-year students have also failed their portfolio submission, leaving me to surmise that something is very wrong with the support or teaching of this course, unless of course they have recruited a dud batch of students this year.”
Last year the equivalent figures for the architecture course at Greenwich were nearly as worrying. Half the portfolios submitted by first-year students in the summer of 2010 failed on the first attempt. The university refused to reveal how many students also failed the resit and had to leave the course.
The astonishingly high failure rate in the first two years of the architecture course at Greenwich highlights a hidden problem at many new universities. Critics claim some enrol students without being open about their chances of successfully gaining a degree, and that the standard of teaching on too many courses is too low.
For mature students, who may have given up a career to return to university, the stakes are particularly high. Last year one in three of those enrolled for the architecture degree at Greenwich was a mature student. Not all will land a dream job. Some are accepted with no A-levels and can struggle to return to academic learning.
A few years ago The Sunday Times highlighted the case of Philip Kitcher. He liked his job as a senior nurse earning £28,000 a year, but thought he might improve himself by training as a lawyer to become a nurse advocate. He was accepted onto Greenwich’s law degree despite having no A-levels. “I was offered a place over the phone and told that my nursing qualification was recognised as equivalent to two A-levels,” he said.
If I had been told the failure rate was so high, I would have thought very hard before turning my life upside down A year later he was thousands of pounds in debt with no imminent prospect of a degree after failing his first-year exams. He said he had not been told that the previous year, one in three students on the three-year degree had not progressed to the second year. Yet more had failed or dropped out before the start of the third year.
“If I had been told that the failure rate was so high and the chances of success so questionable, I would have thought very hard before turning my life upside down,” he told The Sunday Times. “I feel that I have been duped.
“Every year Greenwich takes lots of [law] students who will fail. It takes their money and they run up huge debts.”
A university spokesman said at the time that Kitcher’s allegations were “more complex” than those made public but declined to elaborate.
Greenwich refused to reveal last week how many students failed the first year of the law degree this year. But it did say that recent surveys showed law students were happy with their teaching and the course. Law at Greenwich is ranked 42nd out of 95 universities, says The Times Good University Guide. According to the university’s website: “Our law students were the most satisfied law students in London and the third most satisfied students in the UK.”
Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools and The Sunday Times’s education columnist, has called for an inquiry into the architecture course at Greenwich, where Tessa Blackstone, the former Labour higher education minister, is vice-chancellor.
“With annual tuition fees rising to £8,300 next year at Greenwich, this level of service is simply unacceptable,” he said. “I suspect that the university is admitting students who are not capable of fulfilling the demands of the course and that the quality of the teaching and supervision provided seems far from satisfactory.”
A spokesman for the university admitted: “This is a disappointing pattern of results ... We have arranged extra tutorials over the summer for those students who are resubmitting their portfolios and are supporting them to make sure that they have the best possible chance of carrying on with their studies this autumn.
“All aspects of BA architecture are due to be reviewed next year ... and special attention will be paid to this particular issue ahead of that.”
Are some universities short-changing their students? According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees universities, ministers are planning to force them to publish far more information about their degrees.
A spokesman for the department said last week: “Our white paper sets out plans to improve the information available for prospective students to help them choose the course and institution right for them. Information will include employment rates and salaries of previous graduates, student satisfaction and professional body accreditation.”
But there is nothing to tell unwary candidates that on some degree courses the chances of progressing, even to the second year, may be less than half.
Now she is at risk of having to leave her course. And she is not alone. Only 25 of the course’s intake of 142 students submitted design portfolios that reached the 40% pass mark this summer. If the 109 allowed to retake this month do not pass, they will have to abandon their degrees.
Last week Hunter’s worried mother (names have been changed) said: “She has two more weeks to overhaul the work and resubmit, but has been told that if she fails to pull the portfolio up to 40% she will not automatically be able to retake the first year and will have to leave the university.
“It seems to me she should have been aware of this possibility in January, let alone June. She has in fact spent the year thinking she was doing quite well.
“I understand that nearly 75% of the first-year students have also failed their portfolio submission, leaving me to surmise that something is very wrong with the support or teaching of this course, unless of course they have recruited a dud batch of students this year.”
Last year the equivalent figures for the architecture course at Greenwich were nearly as worrying. Half the portfolios submitted by first-year students in the summer of 2010 failed on the first attempt. The university refused to reveal how many students also failed the resit and had to leave the course.
The astonishingly high failure rate in the first two years of the architecture course at Greenwich highlights a hidden problem at many new universities. Critics claim some enrol students without being open about their chances of successfully gaining a degree, and that the standard of teaching on too many courses is too low.
For mature students, who may have given up a career to return to university, the stakes are particularly high. Last year one in three of those enrolled for the architecture degree at Greenwich was a mature student. Not all will land a dream job. Some are accepted with no A-levels and can struggle to return to academic learning.
A few years ago The Sunday Times highlighted the case of Philip Kitcher. He liked his job as a senior nurse earning £28,000 a year, but thought he might improve himself by training as a lawyer to become a nurse advocate. He was accepted onto Greenwich’s law degree despite having no A-levels. “I was offered a place over the phone and told that my nursing qualification was recognised as equivalent to two A-levels,” he said.
If I had been told the failure rate was so high, I would have thought very hard before turning my life upside down A year later he was thousands of pounds in debt with no imminent prospect of a degree after failing his first-year exams. He said he had not been told that the previous year, one in three students on the three-year degree had not progressed to the second year. Yet more had failed or dropped out before the start of the third year.
“If I had been told that the failure rate was so high and the chances of success so questionable, I would have thought very hard before turning my life upside down,” he told The Sunday Times. “I feel that I have been duped.
“Every year Greenwich takes lots of [law] students who will fail. It takes their money and they run up huge debts.”
A university spokesman said at the time that Kitcher’s allegations were “more complex” than those made public but declined to elaborate.
Greenwich refused to reveal last week how many students failed the first year of the law degree this year. But it did say that recent surveys showed law students were happy with their teaching and the course. Law at Greenwich is ranked 42nd out of 95 universities, says The Times Good University Guide. According to the university’s website: “Our law students were the most satisfied law students in London and the third most satisfied students in the UK.”
Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools and The Sunday Times’s education columnist, has called for an inquiry into the architecture course at Greenwich, where Tessa Blackstone, the former Labour higher education minister, is vice-chancellor.
“With annual tuition fees rising to £8,300 next year at Greenwich, this level of service is simply unacceptable,” he said. “I suspect that the university is admitting students who are not capable of fulfilling the demands of the course and that the quality of the teaching and supervision provided seems far from satisfactory.”
A spokesman for the university admitted: “This is a disappointing pattern of results ... We have arranged extra tutorials over the summer for those students who are resubmitting their portfolios and are supporting them to make sure that they have the best possible chance of carrying on with their studies this autumn.
“All aspects of BA architecture are due to be reviewed next year ... and special attention will be paid to this particular issue ahead of that.”
Are some universities short-changing their students? According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees universities, ministers are planning to force them to publish far more information about their degrees.
A spokesman for the department said last week: “Our white paper sets out plans to improve the information available for prospective students to help them choose the course and institution right for them. Information will include employment rates and salaries of previous graduates, student satisfaction and professional body accreditation.”
But there is nothing to tell unwary candidates that on some degree courses the chances of progressing, even to the second year, may be less than half.
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I lol'd
University of Greenwich
London
I don't have an enormous amount of sympathy for people who do little (if any) research about where they're going to spend several years and many thousands of pounds.
How can people fail so spectacularly if they actually put in effort? Since they are working to their lecturers' specifications, I see no grounds to impute blame to anyone but themselves. It's not Greenwich's fault some of these people have researched their prospects poorly prior to enrolment or assessed improperly their likelihood of academic success. If they are scraping through further education, how on Earth can they expect higher education to be easier? It's incredibly naive to not expect any profiteering entity to portray an inerrant, scintillating image. How ironic that Kitcher wanted to study law, yet fell for basic bias in his research...
Do you not get the opportunity to resit the year?
Original post by whyumadtho
How can people fail so spectacularly if they actually put in effort? Since they are working to their lecturers' specifications, I see no grounds to impute blame to anyone but themselves. It's not Greenwich's fault some of these people have researched their prospects poorly prior to enrolment or assessed improperly their likelihood of academic success. If they are scraping through further education, how on Earth can they expect higher education to be easier? It's incredibly naive to not expect any profiteering entity to portray an inerrant, scintillating image. How ironic that Kitcher wanted to study law, yet fell for basic bias in his research...
This.
The students seem to blame the university and lecturers however, they do not take responsibility for their own actions. They had the chance to attend open days, research degree prospects among many other things before deciding to accept the university's offer.
Also, does anyone know what a "nurse advocate" is?
A lawyer who is also a nurse?????
It sounds like some sort of terrible sitcom.
A lawyer who is also a nurse?????
It sounds like some sort of terrible sitcom.
What's a 'nurse advocate'?
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
Also, does anyone know what a "nurse advocate" is?
A lawyer who is also a nurse?????
It sounds like some sort of terrible sitcom.
A lawyer who is also a nurse?????
It sounds like some sort of terrible sitcom.
Original post by issyconnor
What's a 'nurse advocate'?
They serve as the intermediary entity between patients' demands and the management. They also argue whether or not a particular procedure is suitable, inform patients of the medical procedures and relay the patients' concerns to the senior medical staff.
Perhaps the teaching is sucky (75% fail rate is crazy high, even at a lower uni), but the point is that if 25% can pass, they all can. The people in that 75% should have worked harder and paid closer attention to what was needed. You can blame the lecturers, but at the end of the day passing your course is on you, not them.
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
I don't have an enormous amount of sympathy for people who do little (if any) research about where they're going to spend several years and many thousands of pounds.
Original post by patrickedore
The students seem to blame the university and lecturers however, they do not take responsibility for their own actions. They had the chance to attend open days, research degree prospects among many other things before deciding to accept the university's offer.
The students seem to blame the university and lecturers however, they do not take responsibility for their own actions. They had the chance to attend open days, research degree prospects among many other things before deciding to accept the university's offer.
I think you are making an assumption that this information is available. I did a post-graduate qualification in the continuing education department of a world renowned university. It went to some trouble to avoid giving away information about the numbers who failed/gave up the various stages of the course.
These are the published figures for year 1 to year 2 progression in full time/first degree architecture at Greenwich:
% Break from study 8%
% Continuing at institution 65%
% Gained intended award or higher 14%
% Gained other award 3%
% Left with no award 9%
One might think that the failure rate is only an acceptable 9% but in reality only 65% of the students are there the following year (and how many of those are resitting the first year?). 8% are "resting" (how many of them will ever be seen again), 14% have passed the year and run away, 3% got some sort of consolation prize and run away.
If you want to see how misleading these stats can be look at Manchester's architecture course:
% Break from study 10%
% Continuing at institution 90%
% Gained intended award or higher 0%
% Gained other award 0%
% Left with no award 0%
No-one fails (I suspect no-one has ever failed) in Manchester. If you don't pass you are taking a break from study.
The very high student satisfaction survey is a survey of third years which is a bit like the cartoon of two Roman soldiers in a line of nine with a dead body "Phew, this decimation business isn't so bad after all"
Unfortunately one neil spiller does not a Bartlett make
Hah, this sounds like all maths degree students. My first year of uni, if you asked, "why did you pick maths as a degree?" then a lot of the time your response would be a shrug, followed by, "I was good at it and didn't want to do anything else."
About 50% or less of the people who responded with such a statement actually got through to the second year. Of those, very little are still on for a 2:1 or above.
I agree, to some extent. You can't expect the lecturer to hold your hand, but at the same time it's also rather mean to assume that your students don't need decent lecture notes (stuff that makes sense and covers the content at a minimum) along with some form of knowledge review (problem sheets and answers, seminars, tutorials, workshops).
I totally agree about researching though. I've no sympathy for anyone who decides that they can take £10k from the state to satisfy their need to fit in with their mates and go to uni.
I suppose you're right. Still, it's equally possible that, say, out of a class of a hundred students, 25% of them could just be students who had terrible sixth forms where they had terrible teaching and terrible careers advisor and thus ended up with terrible A levels, but were otherwise academically gifted. It's certainly possible. You can't expect all of the 100 students to be that bright and intuitive, however. Some toddlers need their hands held more than others, but that doesn't mean that you should take the hand away completely and make the toddler stand on his own two feet. That seems unnecessarily harsh.
About 50% or less of the people who responded with such a statement actually got through to the second year. Of those, very little are still on for a 2:1 or above.
Original post by patrickedore
The students seem to blame the university and lecturers however, they do not take responsibility for their own actions. They had the chance to attend open days, research degree prospects among many other things before deciding to accept the university's offer.
I agree, to some extent. You can't expect the lecturer to hold your hand, but at the same time it's also rather mean to assume that your students don't need decent lecture notes (stuff that makes sense and covers the content at a minimum) along with some form of knowledge review (problem sheets and answers, seminars, tutorials, workshops).
I totally agree about researching though. I've no sympathy for anyone who decides that they can take £10k from the state to satisfy their need to fit in with their mates and go to uni.
Original post by hoonosewot
Perhaps the teaching is sucky (75% fail rate is crazy high, even at a lower uni), but the point is that if 25% can pass, they all can. The people in that 75% should have worked harder and paid closer attention to what was needed. You can blame the lecturers, but at the end of the day passing your course is on you, not them.
I suppose you're right. Still, it's equally possible that, say, out of a class of a hundred students, 25% of them could just be students who had terrible sixth forms where they had terrible teaching and terrible careers advisor and thus ended up with terrible A levels, but were otherwise academically gifted. It's certainly possible. You can't expect all of the 100 students to be that bright and intuitive, however. Some toddlers need their hands held more than others, but that doesn't mean that you should take the hand away completely and make the toddler stand on his own two feet. That seems unnecessarily harsh.
Apparently my year I'm in at my university isn't as good as past years. I think my lecturer mentioned the bell curve peaking at the lower end. I'm doing fine so doesn't bother me. Same points needed and same lecturers as past years. I guess it can just happen sometimes.
If I were to do badly I would blame no one but myself.
If I were to do badly I would blame no one but myself.
Original post by wanderlust.xx
I agree, to some extent. You can't expect the lecturer to hold your hand, but at the same time it's also rather mean to assume that your students don't need decent lecture notes (stuff that makes sense and covers the content at a minimum) along with some form of knowledge review (problem sheets and answers, seminars, tutorials, workshops).
I agree, to some extent. You can't expect the lecturer to hold your hand, but at the same time it's also rather mean to assume that your students don't need decent lecture notes (stuff that makes sense and covers the content at a minimum) along with some form of knowledge review (problem sheets and answers, seminars, tutorials, workshops).
I agree that the university is responsible for providing competent lecturers in terms of teaching and knowledge but I believe that the burden lies more on the student. The main question to ask is "why did those student drop out or fail when there are others in the same class who passed or completed the degree to a good standard?"
Original post by nulli tertius
I think you are making an assumption that this information is available. I did a post-graduate qualification in the continuing education department of a world renowned university. It went to some trouble to avoid giving away information about the numbers who failed/gave up the various stages of the course.
The very high student satisfaction survey is a survey of third years which is a bit like the cartoon of two Roman soldiers in a line of nine with a dead body "Phew, this decimation business isn't so bad after all"
The very high student satisfaction survey is a survey of third years which is a bit like the cartoon of two Roman soldiers in a line of nine with a dead body "Phew, this decimation business isn't so bad after all"
I agree that statistics can be very misleading and the example you provided regarding "student satisfaction" proves this.
However, I believe that this generation has more information provided to them than past generations. Resources such as internet websites, particularly websites such as TSR where current university students are gives good opportunities in addition to uni comparison websites and open days. I still believe that more detailed information should be provided by universities.
The next issue occurs once a person has joined the university. The main question to ask is "why did those student drop out or fail when there are others in the same class who passed or completed the degree to a good standard?"
Original post by patrickedore
I agree that statistics can be very misleading and the example you provided regarding "student satisfaction" proves this.
However, I believe that this generation has more information provided to them than past generations. Resources such as internet websites, particularly websites such as TSR where current university students are gives good opportunities in addition to uni comparison websites and open days. I still believe that more detailed information should be provided by universities.
The next issue occurs once a person has joined the university. The main question to ask is "why did those student drop out or fail when there are others in the same class who passed or completed the degree to a good standard?"
However, I believe that this generation has more information provided to them than past generations. Resources such as internet websites, particularly websites such as TSR where current university students are gives good opportunities in addition to uni comparison websites and open days. I still believe that more detailed information should be provided by universities.
The next issue occurs once a person has joined the university. The main question to ask is "why did those student drop out or fail when there are others in the same class who passed or completed the degree to a good standard?"
Clearly this generation does have more information but equally they need it.
There are many more institutions and much greater variability between those institutions.
I think a university does have a duty only to admit students it can be reasonably confident can meet the demands of a course. I do not think it is fair to take money, whether from the taxpayer or the student, merely to give a student a chance of seeing if they are good enough.
That means for "conventional" students setting an academic entry floor below which the institution simply will not recruit even if it leaves empty places. For non-conventional students it means having robust assessment criteria.
ACTUALLY my girlfriend failed. she didnt sleep some nights because she was so dedicated to making her work better and better. so b4 YOU go opening ur mouth saying they didnt make the effort think again!
yh there hand in date is 24/08/2011
Original post by whyumadtho
ACTUALLY my girlfriend failed. she didnt sleep some nights because she was so dedicated to making her work better and better. so b4 YOU go opening ur mouth saying they didnt make the effort think again!
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