Post-graduates should not be blamed for University failings
Frances Sapayo
The first-year Management course has been brought under scrutiny after many of the first-year grades were altered during moderation over the Christmas holidays. A lot of students returning from a supposedly well-earned break found they were not performing as well as first thought. Students were informed that marking was provisional and could change upon moderation, but nobody expected the changes to be so extreme – many papers went from a 2:2 to a First, and vice versa. Questions have been raised regarding consistency of the marking and the experience of those who did the marking as the majority were post-graduates.
My question is: should postgraduates really take on this role, when they themselves are at such an important point in their own university careers? These individuals are students themselves, they do not work full-time at the University, will not be given as much credit as they clearly deserve at the end of the year, and have other things that they will want to be doing. Post-graduates are still part of the student population at our University and should be treated this way. They have deadlines to meet, work to be done, and need time to relax. The provisional marking system is unfair both for the first-years, and the post-graduate students who are condemned for their efforts.
When we started university, with high expectations of learning a language in 19 weeks through the LFA scheme, or actually improving in the subject you want to spend your life working on, not many of us expected to be taught more by post-graduates than experienced university lecturers. Tuition fees are expensive enough, even though it might not be affecting our bank balances yet, and cases like these where students’ assessments are being marked with inconsistency signals that the alarming trend of ‘post-graduate practice professors’ may be affecting our education.
After complaints were received, it was also found that whole seminar groups were losing marks to a similar degree – something that would not have been picked up on before moderation and could have easily been changed after the first set of assignments were marked. Inconsistency seems to be present in the teaching as well as the marking.
“the feeling of competence in the subject is twice as important as the grade”
The students lose confidence in themselves at a time when the feeling of competence in the subject is twice as important as the grade.
It seems that the first-year papers have slipped down the priority list, as many of the professors will have been busy dealing with second and third-year assignments. As valid as this argument is for post-graduate markers, first-years should not be forgotten just because ‘the first year doesn’t count’. Although it is true that for most first-years their grade only needs to be a pass, many have done a lot to get a university place, and a pass may not be what they expected, or should expect, of themselves.
Lessons should be learnt from these mistakes, throughout all departments. The University of York no longer holds a place in the top ten UK universities, and easily fixed problems like these could be part of the reason. These post-graduates do help a lot, some of them will explain the subject better than the actual professor, but they shouldn’t be used as the academic’s work horse.
6 responses below. Comments are open.
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This comment piece does a massive disservice to postgraduate students at York (no need for a hyphen).
How do you think these “professors” you talk of with such rose-tinted glasses learn to teach, and mark, in the first place? Not to mention the fact that in reality, postgraduate students tend to spend FAR more time and effort on their marking, for fear of getting something wrong early in their career.
Following your logic, I really don’t think Nouse writers should be used as a ‘work horse’ for real, paid journalists.
ridiculous. Some of the best teaching i have recieved was from postgrads. they are enthusiastic and interested, always avaliable for advice and very knowledgeable.
You can be taught in school by people 3 years old than you, but not here?
Nouse got slammed for making this assumption that postgrad teaching is poor and the writer got slammed for it and frankly the same should be happening here.
@Postgraduate Student
@3rd year
The article was written because postgraduate Management students marked first year scripts inconsistently all through last term. I’m positive that, if the postgraduates had more direction, time for themselves, and support from the University, this would not have happened. But it did. Many students were affected and I felt that this point needed to be made.
I am also taught by postgraduates and appreciate having them alongside the lecturers. They do have value at University but we need to be aware that, at this point in our education, situations like this should not be ignored.
Thank you for raising these points, but I do stand by my original argument. It was never meant to offend anyone, but even if it does, then it was my opinion on the situation and this is what the comment section of any newspaper is all about.
I think all three comments have merit and would happily extoll the virtues of postgrads who teach. However I think the key point is that there has been a failure largely of the making of TYMS. It is actually the case that some of the TYMS forst year sessions are not even taken by postgrads from within TYMS or with any management knowledge
“They do have value at University but we need to be aware that, at this point in our education, situations like this should not be ignored.”
What does this even mean?! Inconsistant marking happens with individuals who’ve been teaching for years.
Your entire comment piece shows a complete lack of understanding of how academia actually works. You offer no evidence to support your claim that the problem was directly related to their status as PGR students.
I am one of the students who has a postgrad writing tutor who is not from TYMS. (Basically, she runs the seminars and does the initial markings of our essays.)
My initial essay grade dropped from what I expected to be a middling 2:1 (based on the first marks) to a rather low 2:2 after the re-mark. Initially my writing tutor had told me she was a harsh marker… Not too sure where that came from now.
Either way, some of them justified the higher grades by saying, “But we wanted to show you where you were doing well.” Well, that is just fantastic of you, thanks. However, by ‘inflating’ (whether that was what they did, or if it was merely an excuse) my grades I actually did not receive the harsh critique I would have liked. I also got a massive fall in confidence due to me doing nowhere near as well as I thought would. I mean, what exactly was the point in telling me my work was 2:1 quality and then turning back and saying, “Oh, no. Your work wasn’t 2:1, it was 2:2. We hope you learnt something from this!”
As a result I now have to re-learn how to get a 2:1, or better, in my essay writing. It basically made the first term’s worth of essays a total waste of time, in my eyes at least.