In response to Matt, it’s basic newspaper practice to have articles ‘Comment’-ing on the main news stories of the issue. The purpose of Comment is to express a balanced opinion about a story, as opposed to News, whose purpose is simply to report the facts.

And they are facts, by the way. The 250% statistic is correct, as this means 2.5 times ‘as many as’, not ‘more than’, which is a slip that our print edition made which has been corrected for the web version.

Oscar, the news article states that there were 52 tribunals, of which 12 involved overseas students (the 2.5 times figure is proportional, taking into account the number of home and overseas students at the university). At a university of 11000 students, these are fairly small numbers. But the point is that an academic tribunal is in itself a serious matter, with serious consequences, and our coverage of the story aims to point out that there is a discrepancy in terms of the proportions of students involved, and that - although there are positive measures in place, more could perhaps be done.

cutting - I’d like to make a similar response to your second comment. We do not believe either that the university is failing overseas students or that our coverage implies this idea.

I agree with your main argument about the level of English-speaking ability that overseas students need in order to study here, but surely this only makes the relatively disproportionate number of overseas students involved in tribunals more mystifying?

Clearly - in a relative handful of cases only, I emphasise - not enough is being done to break down the inevitable barriers. However, obviously, the answer is not to discourage foreign students, but to find an alternative, positive solution.

Joe Chapman
Nouse Comment

I disagree with your assertion that it is only language differences that affect international students, I believe there are a great deal of cultural differences to be taken into consideration as well

My point is against Nouse’s presentation of this story as ‘the university is failing foreign students and must do something about it’. I do not believe this to be the case. It seems more likely to me that the tiny percentage of foreign students who face academic tribunals do so because either (a) they cheated or plagiarised or (b) they misunderstood some instruction (given in English). In neither case is the university at fault.

If *all* foreign students at this university were proficient with high level (academic standard) spoken and written english, then the high rate of academic misconduct by foreign students would be rather difficult to explain - since all students get the same warnings, information, etc. If, in fact, all foreign students at this university *do* have this high level of English then the “250%” headline is no story at all - it is each individual student’s own fault for not heeding the warnings/doing their work.

However, this is not how the story has been presented by NOUSE. Implicit is the assumption that some foreign student’s command of the English language (the language of tuition at this institution) is NOT up to this required standard. The argument then goes that such students are disadvantaged when it comes to understanding plagiarism warnings, when it comes to writing and reading for essays (when everything is in english), etc etc.

My point is that this is an English-language speaking institution, and foreign students know when they apply here that their command of english must be very good if they want to succeed. If their command of English isn’t good enough, then they shouldn’t be at university here. Therefore, lack of English language skills don’t form an ‘excuse’ for foreign students who commit academic misconduct, and the 250% figure only represents a failing of the university in respect of the university’s failure to identify the foreign students with language difficulties. But, once identified, the university itself has no obligation to help them learn English better. The University of York provides tuition IN ENGLISH. Each individual foreign student knows this in advance when they apply, and so should be prepared for it.

It is true that foreign students are at a disadvantage if they do not speak good enough english for academic purposes. But they themselves are responsible for putting themselves at this disadvantage by choosing to study here in the first place. The disadvantage is therefore not unfair, and should not be given special considerations in academic tribunals.

The 250% refers to the proportion of foreign to home students, but the main article stresses that the numbers involved are nevertheless very small - less than 2% of internationals and less than 1% of home students