USP to turn into Secondary School? Deputy VC Richard Coll's e-mail written to facilitate Reddy's continuing dictatorship in the Education Ministry's Dumbing Down: Does Law want to retain 60% English for LLB?

18/8/2015

"You might think requiring 50% for all and/or more some subjects will
cause a drop off in admissions. But this might be mitigated by less
difficult exams and/or more generous marking."

From: Richard Coll

Sent: Monday, August 17, 2015 3:00 PM

To: Akanisi Kedrayate; Bibhya Sharma; Franco Gandolfi

Cc: Anjeela Jokhan; Karyn Gibson

Subject: Scaling and Entry to Degree Level Study at USP

Importance: High

Colleagues

We now need to get a paper to SMT for a meeting of 28 August.
I had originally asked Faculties to look at the Ministry data and get
back to us by 31 August.

This would have left us time to get to Senate 3. But that is not now
possible because the VC is on duty travel after 28 August.

So could we please have Faculty responses by 27 August, instead of 31 August.

I have been thinking through this and also wanted to be clear to you
what we actually want.

Senate has already approved 200 for best four aggregate as entry to University.
What we need from Faculties is two things.

First, for University level do we want to retain the clause that they
must get 50% in all 4 of the aggregate subjects

The Senate decision at this stage means there is no such requirement.
The 2015 Calendar & Handbook specifies this.

Second we want Faculties to specify the entry for particular programmes.
So does Law for example want to retain 60% English for LLB? Similar
for BSc and Agriculture, Economics etc.

I think for any accreditation requirements we have little choice but
to go with the requirements of the accrediting bodies. Please tell us
what these are so we can incorporate these into the admission regulations.

You might think requiring 50% for all and/or more some subjects will
cause a drop off in admissions. But this might be mitigated by less
difficult exams and/or more generous marking.

It also might be that students and teachers focus more on the exams
because of fear of major failure.

Professor Richard K. Coll
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Learning, Teaching & Student Services)
The University of the South Pacific
Private Mail Bag, Laucala Campus
Suva, Fiji
Ph: +679 323 2053
Email: Richard.coll@usp.ac.fj

Richard Coll: "It also might be that students and teachers focus more on the exams because of fear of major failure."

9 Comments

USP is worse than secondary school link

20/8/2015 05:01:36 am

Saying that USP is a secondary school is an insult.It's an insult. It is a primary school with a headmaster who has no idea what he should do. After all he loves filling his pockets, promoting those who spy , terrorize and harass other staff on his behalf. Like a primary school head teacher he loves to be worshipped, removate his private properties with USP money. His gang in Maintenance checks that nothing gets leaked. When he has time from all these VC goes to lick the AG, prime minister and the minister of education. Now wonder how the quality will improve. Never until the whole system is changed.

Bahuki

20/8/2015 09:19:17 am

That headmaster of the so-called "secondary school" clearly has no idea what he's actually doing since he's supposed to act like an actual VC and not some lunatic because foundation is already there and new students are already done with high school lest they end up finding themselves repeating in a university what they've just completed already.

But its still understandable the person responsible is more focused on money and not so much on how students can improve further and move on towards a degree.

Tomasi Koroi

20/8/2015 10:51:31 am

You do not have the full story. But why you focus only on USP? Check out FNU. More sinful things happening there. Gora approved his favourite boy to employ his father, his mother in law and his wife at high salaries. father and mother in law both over retirement age. Wife on 50k+. Petition written about this to Council one month back; copied to all council members. Council did nothing. Human and IR Committee Chairperson, one Veronica McCoy - very paly with Gora. They want no controversy and protect Gora. Quality declining. Lecturers say: do whatever, make sure no complains from students. This is worse than USP. Leave USP alone; it is mature. We can solve our problems.

GORA IS A FRUAD HIMSELF

20/8/2015 03:31:34 pm

I sympathise with your sentiments tomasi koroi that fnu is far, far shitty than USP. the gora they made vc is himself a chor from western Australia, a failed academic and someone who was kicked out of edith cowan university for rorting his credit card - the same
thing he's done and still doing at fnu - old habits die hard!!!

Tomasi Koroi

21/8/2015 05:38:35 am

People at FSM always were saying this. Dr. Ganesh was seen as a hope for them. And true, he got an audit done. But with his resignation, all is back to as was. Why is FNU Council, Minister or FICAC not doing anything? Is it because he is a Gora? Sad era now for Fiji. At least at USP, we have good quality locals.

LLB Benchmark

20/8/2015 02:24:25 pm

60% in ENGLISH for LLB is way too high, in the new Fiji everyone should be given a fair go.. our popular PM should be the new benchmark!

And

22/8/2015 05:13:33 am

And another good benchmark is that former military spokesman Neumi luv end ah ah ah ....

Ratu Sai

20/8/2015 03:35:03 pm

This is the kind of news that the Fiji Sun should peddle, not the worthless Gaunavinaka Report for the benefit of a few disgruntled politicians.

Kavita

20/8/2015 04:38:38 pm

Interesting. USP being a regional higher education institution is now moving on to accommodate the new interests of Fiji’s education ministry. Is the ministry trying to get numbers for its 10 or so technical education centers it is moving to set up? Raising the entry level bar on what grounding? Doesn’t USP have its own research data on success rates of borderline entrants in terms of completing their degrees?

Being an established university and in existence for so long isn’t the accreditation requirements already incorporated and regularly updated to be in sync with the relevant authorities? And Prof Coll attempts to do the muddying right to get to particular responses.

It is a concern that having those changes will deprive many students from attaining university education. On the one hand government has implemented the loans scheme to assist the vast numbers to do university studies, and on the other , working with institutions to change intake requirements to restrict numbers. It is a case of institutionalizing ill thought out policies. And one that strikes at the root of fairness and rights to freedom of educational opportunities.

Even the much praised TELS and education package now turning into fake.

What is alarming is Prof Colls mitigation strategy for dropout in numbers as a result of changes where he states to adopt “less difficult exams and/or more generous marking”. So USP is prepared to compromise on academic integrity and academic quality to accommodate interests of Fiji’s education ministry. And how could such mitigation be uniformly implemented given so many different academics and courses being involved.

It would be interesting to get an assessment of the impact of such changes from the regional countries.

It is apparent Prof Coll’s leading questions and volunteering quick reasoning point to the Faculty which direction to take.

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