You want to know the temperament of the person seeking employment; are they explorers or prefer to trek a well-worn path? One of my set questions is to ask the graduate to name a case they found interesting.
For many years this produced a slew of interesting answers and discussions would pivot from there. But in this case….nothing. I reframed the question; can you name a single legal case? There was some hesitation before a nervous response about a snail in a coke bottle. Donoghue and Stevenson; for those playing at home.
I checked the transcript before me. This was an A student. From a real university; not a reformed Polytech masquerading as a law school.
We have come to expect things getting better. And cheaper. Phones. Cars. Washing machines. The price falls while the quality rises. However; this isn’t true for all products. Banking, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and university graduates have deteriorated.
For many years this produced a slew of interesting answers and discussions would pivot from there. But in this case….nothing. I reframed the question; can you name a single legal case? There was some hesitation before a nervous response about a snail in a coke bottle. Donoghue and Stevenson; for those playing at home.
I checked the transcript before me. This was an A student. From a real university; not a reformed Polytech masquerading as a law school.
We have come to expect things getting better. And cheaper. Phones. Cars. Washing machines. The price falls while the quality rises. However; this isn’t true for all products. Banking, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and university graduates have deteriorated.
Like most employers, I’ve become accustomed to taking a university transcript as seriously as the Green Party’s economic policy and, thanks to the excellent work of Dr James Kierstead, we have data to confirm our suspicions.
Kierstead is interesting. A refugee from Canada he studied classics at Oxford and did a PhD in classics at Stanford before washing up at our shores teaching at Victoria University. Kierstead migrated, with some reluctance, away from academia to the free-market think-tank the NZ Initiative.
Last week he published a research paper on grade inflation in the tertiary sector.
He provides evidence that over the last two decades grades have been creeping up around the western world and in the United Kingdom it became so ridiculous that a new grade, A*, was introduced to differentiate from the large number of graduates getting an A+.
If the inflation isn’t resolved there will be an A** and the regime will begin to resemble the credit rating agencies where Venezuela still gets a C.
Down here, Kierstead tracks the expansion of those students getting As. In 2006 it was 22% and by 2024 it had crept up to 35%. This is a decline from the Covid years where professors were being kind by awarding top marks with the same generosity that Grant Robertson was tossing out wage subsidies.
This trend stretches over all disciplines and universities, although law did hold the line better the creative arts.
There was some analysis; perhaps the kids are getting smarter? Or maybe it was the rise in females that was pushing up the academic standard, more money or more teachers per student? None of these reasons held any explanatory power.
So why? Are we just getting soft and giving the kids good grades as freely as we hand out Ritalin or is there something more systematic driving this evolution?
Several explanations are put forward. A course that develops a reputation for marking honestly will get less students, and then less funding, than one where grades are awarded on the basis of empathy rather exams.
Kierstead doesn’t provide a neat answer because one does not exist but he does outline the problems that arise when grade inflation undermines their explanatory power and reduces the emphasis on students to learn.
He compares it to the tragedy of the commons; where something that costs nothing for everyone to use can be damaged if everyone uses it. High grades are a signal to the student that they know the topic and to their parents and potential employers that some knowledge has been acquired.
You may think that this is academic and harmless; but if your surgeon or the engineer who designed your building as it rattles in an earthquake obtained their qualification through attendance rather than application, you can begin to see the problem.
Employers have noticed and we now discount academic transcripts in favour of private assessments to allow us to separate the diligent from the dilettantes.
But there is a greater malaise in the tertiary system; that kids are spending years learning nothing and getting rewarded with evidence of achievements that misrepresents their ability. University isn’t just about drinking, debauchery and couch burning; although the importance of these noble activities should not be discounted.
The modern world is complex; with greater opportunity and risks for those becoming adults in the decades ahead. Knowledge degrades with increasing speed and the greatest skill we can teach is the ability to learn.
Our children are leaving university with debt, lost years and a mistaken belief that they know something. Our universities are failing.....The full article is published HERE
Kierstead is interesting. A refugee from Canada he studied classics at Oxford and did a PhD in classics at Stanford before washing up at our shores teaching at Victoria University. Kierstead migrated, with some reluctance, away from academia to the free-market think-tank the NZ Initiative.
Last week he published a research paper on grade inflation in the tertiary sector.
He provides evidence that over the last two decades grades have been creeping up around the western world and in the United Kingdom it became so ridiculous that a new grade, A*, was introduced to differentiate from the large number of graduates getting an A+.
If the inflation isn’t resolved there will be an A** and the regime will begin to resemble the credit rating agencies where Venezuela still gets a C.
Down here, Kierstead tracks the expansion of those students getting As. In 2006 it was 22% and by 2024 it had crept up to 35%. This is a decline from the Covid years where professors were being kind by awarding top marks with the same generosity that Grant Robertson was tossing out wage subsidies.
This trend stretches over all disciplines and universities, although law did hold the line better the creative arts.
There was some analysis; perhaps the kids are getting smarter? Or maybe it was the rise in females that was pushing up the academic standard, more money or more teachers per student? None of these reasons held any explanatory power.
So why? Are we just getting soft and giving the kids good grades as freely as we hand out Ritalin or is there something more systematic driving this evolution?
Several explanations are put forward. A course that develops a reputation for marking honestly will get less students, and then less funding, than one where grades are awarded on the basis of empathy rather exams.
Kierstead doesn’t provide a neat answer because one does not exist but he does outline the problems that arise when grade inflation undermines their explanatory power and reduces the emphasis on students to learn.
He compares it to the tragedy of the commons; where something that costs nothing for everyone to use can be damaged if everyone uses it. High grades are a signal to the student that they know the topic and to their parents and potential employers that some knowledge has been acquired.
You may think that this is academic and harmless; but if your surgeon or the engineer who designed your building as it rattles in an earthquake obtained their qualification through attendance rather than application, you can begin to see the problem.
Employers have noticed and we now discount academic transcripts in favour of private assessments to allow us to separate the diligent from the dilettantes.
But there is a greater malaise in the tertiary system; that kids are spending years learning nothing and getting rewarded with evidence of achievements that misrepresents their ability. University isn’t just about drinking, debauchery and couch burning; although the importance of these noble activities should not be discounted.
The modern world is complex; with greater opportunity and risks for those becoming adults in the decades ahead. Knowledge degrades with increasing speed and the greatest skill we can teach is the ability to learn.
Our children are leaving university with debt, lost years and a mistaken belief that they know something. Our universities are failing.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
2 comments:
Join one of the armed forces. Choose a trade and get excellent training, become an officer if you wish and retire in total security in your early 40s, ready to carve out a career in whatever field you choose. But please don't take the local body gravy train option. Education usually begins after the formal qualifications are finished.
Don’t have to go far to see how universities and the education system is failing. Go to the comments section of stuff , herald and the platform on you tube for example and even after giving hefty discounts (like our court judges) for typos and the horrible auto correct, the grammar, spelling, and malapropisms, wrong use of cliches and metaphors abound — an indictment of how badly students are now taught in the classrooms.
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