Schadenfreude is the last refuge of the wise in an idiotic world, so I’m enjoying this:
Australian academics say they are being pressured into passing hundreds of students suspected of plagiarism and other forms of cheating in order to maintain their universities’ revenue streams, threatening the integrity and international reputation of the entire sector.
The combination of commercialised cheating and the rise of AI now threatened to devalue degrees until they were “handed out like expensive lollies”, one academic said.
Guardian Australia spoke to multiple academics and students, who described wholesale use of genAI going largely unchecked at many institutions.
Good ‘ol Guardian of the Realm to the rescue. The fact that it has been happening with increasing intensity for a decade passes the paper by. Now we’re rescued!
Except that we are not. Because the problem here is not AI. The problem is that there are far too many international students, a large proportion of whom cannot speak English.
That is why pedagogical standards have been in freefall for years.
It is also why local students have been shoehorned into becoming freeriding tutors to massage the foreign kiddies over the line.
It is why there have been burgeoning cheating scandals for years.
It is why academics have been pressured into passing foreign failures forever.
It is why the ratio of teacher numbers to students and greedy administrators has tumbled.
All because The Guardian won’t mention the word “immigration” because that would be racist.
The best way to save Australian universities is to shut down The Guardian of nothing.
