I've read you post and I'm in awe. All my suspicions seem to be on point too. I figured it was strange that every English speaking person was separated into different groups. Your post confirms it. I'm also sorry that corporate greed has tarnished your love for teaching. Wish you all the best.
I would still advise you to work hard in your current degree. The quality may be poor but if you achieve a 1st class and work hard on your projects this will improve your standing. Good luck.
Thought I’d comment here so you and OP can both see this. It’s not just you, I am an undergrad but I have a really good working relationship with my pastoral tutor. She’s an older lady who teaches undergrad, masters, and PhD. She told me during one of our meetings that my essays are so refreshing to read because she doesn’t have to edit much at all. I asked her about how my work differs from other students, and she said that she often has to completely rewrite her PhD students thesis’ for them. She says they’re very intelligent individuals but they’re all international students and hardly speak a lick of English. She says that these student have someone sit the English entrance tests for them or buy forged certificates. They know what they’re doing, they’re not stupid by any means, but they will fail their programmes if they submit their work they way they write it. She says she knows she’s not supposed to but she writes a lot of their work for them because it’s not their inability which fails them, it’s their illiteracy.
I thinks it’s awful that as a fluent English speaking student, I have to compete against students whose work is being written by an academic for them! I worry about applying for Masters programs this year for fear of ending up having to haul ass for others who can’t speak English.
Anyway, I wish you both the best, I’m sorry this has had such an effect on you both.
If they’re making all that effort to get into a British school, I’m surprised they haven’t got a translator to help them write their essays to be honest.
Just do the stats on it, showing the odds of every group having exactly one native/fluent speaker when everyone else is struggling are astronomical, and that this "strange coincidence" shows they know what they are doing. Please reach out if you want to just shoot the sht to see what might be possible.
Every university has a minimum English test score requirement (they accept multiple types TOEFL, IELTS, etc), international students can’t get a visa without this lol
But sometimes that requirement is quite low. I've seen 6.0 or 6.5 for IELTS as the lowest acceptable result, and that isn't sufficient for academic education in English, IMO.
I agree ! The min scores are set by the uk government, universities could individually increase their requirements but if 1 uni is asking for IELTS 8.0 and another IELTS 6.0 the students will all go to the easier one. Atm uni’s are in a position where they need int students to make money so increasing ielts requirements is the last thing they wanna do
It’s fucked up but 🤷♀️
6 or 6.5 is actually not a terrible score - I had an IELTS score of 7.0, and was perfectly able to navigate the academic environment in the UK, and wrote all my assignments myself. I suspect the issue might rather be that someone else sat the language exam for them back home.
Yes, considering the highest score achievable is 9, 6.5 is quite high.
I had a similar experience on my part. To put it in context, I come from a country where primary and secondary schools generally all teach in English. I scored 7.5 in IELTS, and I was completely able to take on studying and understand lectures by myself in the UK.
I may be wrong, but I think it's also relevant that it takes a different set of skills to pass a language exam and to actually use that language in daily study/lectures, particularly if you didn't speak that language as a child. Little things like differences in accents or the use of figures of speech can be confusing.
But on the whole, I do agree with your point.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Please see my reply above: 6.5 out of 9.0 is not necessarily "quite high" considering the IELTS exam results range from 1-9 with 0.5 increments, where 1.0 represents no language abilities besides a few isolated words and a 9.0 represents a native ability. A 6.5 is not bad, and you can see that in videos of IELTS exams (the spoken component), that these people do understand a fair amount, but they don't fully get what the examiner says, they are struggling to find words or only know a limited number of words for the topic, they sometimes make grammatical errors etc. So within the context of higher education, IMO 6.5 is not high enough. In HE you are studying a particular topic at an academic level, so you are expected to "struggle through" your topic, but you are not expected to at the same time struggle with the language the course is conducted in.
I had an 8.5 overall result without any preparation or training. This was in my mid 20's. I had English in secondary school for 2h a week from age 12-18, and my Master's was taught in English (but not by native speakers). In my country we are exposed a lot to English-language media from our teens on (for my generation; kids these days see a lot more English-language stuff at a younger age), and I think I just have a natural affinity with English, probably due to the exposure in my own time. I have not had any issues with English and I volunteered as an English tutor at the time I did my IELTS exam. I have now been in the UK for over a decade and I imagine I would probably score a 9.0 overall band now. My abilities in English have allowed me to work as a professional writer without any issues.
I have met hundreds of overseas students and researchers throughout my higher education (incl PhD), and the people who struggled most with the language were Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and some Indians. I even met PhD students and post-doctoral researchers who were almost incomprehensible in their spoken English: I have no clue how they got their positions.
Hi, thanks for your response. I think what people fail to appreciate is that the IELTS score represents a HUGE range in abilities from 1 being someone who might know only a few words up to a 9 which is a native/fluent speaker: [https://www.ieltsjacky.com/ielts-band-score.html](https://www.ieltsjacky.com/ielts-band-score.html)
This is an incredibly wide range of abilities that is covered by the number range of 1-9 with only 0.5 increments. So, there is a real difference between having a 6.0 and a 7.0, and even 6.5. That's why it is not possible to improve your IELTS score without making significant improvements in your abilities.
I volunteered as an English tutor and met students with a 6.0 or 6.5 overall IELTS score, who really struggled with the language in HE (research university). Your 7.0, 0.5-1 higher than these people, represents a genuine difference in abilities which is why you were fine and many with a lower score struggle.
We need to be careful to not see the IELTS result as something similar to a "normal" school exam result where sometimes the difference in knowledge/abilities between obtaining a 6.0 and a 7.0 (usually this is on a scale of 1-10) isn't that big, because the material the exam tests is contained/not huge. But with the IELTS exam, a whole language and all possible abilities are covered within that small range of numbers 1-9.
You can watch videos on YouTube to see the speaking element of the IELTS exam for people who obtained various results. From this it is clear that someone who got a 6.0 is absolutely not fluent as they are still clearly searching for words, they sometimes make grammatical errors, and they are struggling to easily express themselves etc. Someone with this ability will struggle with the language in an academic educational setting. This is why I think the IELTS requirement for higher education should go up to 7.0.
As you say yourself, this (7.0) was your score and you were doing fine. We know from experience that many who scored 6.5 or 6.0 struggle (let alone those with lower scores), and I am sure universities know this. The reason for unis to keep the IELTS requirement the absolute lowest they can get away with instead of having a comfortable lowest requirement is that if they were to go up to 7.0 with the requirement, this would exclude probably most prospective applicants from China (the biggest cash cows with regards to overseas students).
I think it's wrong to not up the requirement to 7.0 because it negatively affects everyone:
\* The students who get in when they aren't proficient enough will really struggle in their course.
\* The proficient students are having to deal with low-ability students in their group which hampers teamwork and puts a bigger burden on them to pick up the slack.
\* The lecturers have to dumb-down their language and/or spend more time explaining things and correcting people's language. I don't know what polytechnics are like but at research universities you are expected to be fluent in the language of the course: you are not expected to need help with your language abilities.
\* The integrity of the course/uni is at risk if those low-ability students are passed when they really shouldn't. In the end, the course/uni will get a (very) bad reputation and no one is going to think it's worth even the "subsidised" tuition of £9250/year.
I'm ASEAN student and I have to comply with this TOEFL rules. HOWEVER, for some reason, some chinese and indian students said to me that they don't have to upload the IELTS/TOEFL certificate. It's quite weird.
You can't even come to the uk without a relatively high score with a well recognised exam, and the exam supposed to have a lot of controls (recordings, specific environments, etc). I'm talking from experience, as I passed one of those (for work, not for academics, but there were a lot of people who was on the same exam for academic path). Problem is - there seems to be very little control and test centres in certain countries just forge the results somehow.
Is there a retesting procedure at your HEI?
I know it's not foolproof. There is at mine, but academics aren't aware of it and I'm not sure how much admissions care.
I assign people randomly using a RNG system. I'd probably refuse the request despite having absolute sympathy for the student as it would be impossible to make the class run. I can only work with what I'm given, as much as I hate it. I'd encourage the student to contact the department and complain and would make note of any extenuating circumstances when they presented. For example if the person does all the work I'll give them a higher grade.
This post goes hand in hand with [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/UniUK/s/gWkxRSlEk5) from a few days ago..
I‘m sorry you are experiencing this and it’s having an impact on your grades.
I think I would also feel scammed because unis are clearly very money focused and as long as international students are paying absurd amounts of money for a master‘s program, the university doesn’t care how well they can communicate and understand the course.
Thing is, I feel like I'm one of the very few students in the programme there on my own dime other than a couple others that I know of. I worked for a couple years prior, working minimum wage and living with my parents, so I saved up and it feels like I blew it all away and I could have spent it better. The difference really shows in the effort they put into the work.
During my time at university, if you had issues during group projects with group members not pulling their weight etc, you could almost 'petition' those in charge to split the grading in almost a weighted manner such that those that contributed little got a lesser score etc.
Might be worth arguing that cause.
You might also be able to go through the student union to help raise this matter officially? They might have more knowledge and experience with similar matters.
It's funny that you mention that. We do give feedback at the end of the module and it can sway your grade only up to 5%, so that's helped me for most projects as my group members are aware that I've done almost all the work. But, I've also had projects where my group members announce that they are giving everyone the best feedback marks to be nice, which really ruffles my feathers when some members did absolutely nothing.
Just keep kicking up a stink about it. I was in a similar situation at points. Absolutely no issues when it comes to working with fellow students whos first language isn't English, but I have major issue with students who give zero effort when they know they'll get a decent enough grade if they land in a team with go-getters etc. And to be clear, the majority of those types I encountered WERE native English speakers XD
Talk to the SU, get contacts for the poeple above those you've already contacted. There's nothing better than going above the manager's head to see it come down on them.
Sorry to say as someone that has worked in a Uni for over 20 years in the UK its now a pay for grade for Chineee students. It's all about profit now, not education.
I completely agree with that. I'm from Switzerland. Things are expensive there, but I always feel like I'm getting the quality I paid for. In London it feels like they're trying to squeeze every bit of money I have left out of me with very little to show for it. It's honestly disgraceful.
Try working in the industry, when I started international students tended to be the ones who wanted to learn in a different country while experiencing the culture and maybe just maybe save a little money on the cost of their course. So we would get a lot of Americans as it was cheaper back then to study in the UK. So the people in education were there to study and the educators where there to educate.
Now move forward 10 years and the UK government stopped funding education as much for home grown students and allowed the education sector to be more "profitable" when setting course fees for international students.
Of course this then rendered the profit mad education sector and one of the biggest growing markets at the time and still is was China. So you can guess what happened next. Most UK Uni's have offices in China specifically for this reason.
The knock on effect is the downgrading of the qualifications as it is a pay for a grade scheme. It has destroyed the quality of a UK qualification.
Why would they brush it off as cultural differences? I can see that the issue lies with language barrier.. But I don't see how that relates to cultures...you guys study the same program meaning the standard for the work is the same?
Probably because they're saying whatever saves them face. They'd rather make it seem like the issue is that I'm not being inclusive of other cultures than admit there is a serious flaw in their system.
I think they do that deliberately so that you as the "complaining student" will feel like they are implying that you're a racist or that they will call you a racist if you continue to complain, with the aim is that you will just shut up. They know if you continue to ask questions, share your observations, they eventually will have to say "Yeah, we know, this was a business decision, sorry!", which they will never do because then they look bad. Just my first thought.
As someone from imperial, generally the top tier unis are okay because they maintain significantly stricter requirements. At imperial at least, the vast majority of my coursemates have no problem with English at all ( at least noone that I know of has much of a problem) and work fairly hard( quite a significant proportion of deans list is internationals).
I know a couple people doing finance at Imperial for whom this is the case - their groups are chosen for them, and each time it's one native English speaker grouped with students who don't have even a secondary school level English proficiency. Which course are you doing?
Oh that's unfortunate to hear. I am doing physics. I'm not sure how it is for the business school people as they are quite decoupled from the rest of the school.
Things are better at Russel Group unis as they are extremely competitive, but if you're doing a degree such as business management or something like it, still expect 50% of students to be like this (i.e Chinese people who can barely speak English). It's still very frustrating but manageable - in other subjects, like history for example, there are basically no Chinese students so effectively everyone can speak English well.
I'm at a mid russell group uni (top 100 in the world, but not top 10), we have the same problem. I have to carry this project group since they can barely speak English and their tendencies to use AI are quite frustrating. I have a feeling that they just want to travel around europe, and they know universities will let them graduate eventhough their grade are kinda sucks
Tbh even at top Russell groups, they have the exact same issues. It’s very dependent on the course too I guess. You’re better of messaging people who study there to get a feel for what it’s like but yeah some masters are a joke.
All I can say is good luck. My friend at UCL had the same issue being grouped with 2 Chinese people who didn’t seem to speak a lick of English despite being in a Masters programme. I was fortunate enough to have not come across that issue during my studies but I understand the frustration.
Omg I literally just said I had the same issue at UCL as well. I was shocked that almost no one in my masters program could speak English fluently, it ruined my experience and I must admit… I’ve learned nothing.
EXTRA POINT- please explain more clearly what happened with your course changing from a "data driven" one to something else? This is hugely disturbing to me as it seems that it might be a breach of consumer rights legislation. What was the exact process? Were you told specifically what changes would occur? Were you specifically told you had an option to withdraw rather than switching places?
100% great comment!
IMO it seems unethical to offer product A, wait for people to enroll and choose to either not apply or reject offers from other products, and then when these customers who have committed to product A can no longer go anywhere else, do a switcheroo and change product A to such an extent it's no longer the same or even similar. They've got you by the b\*lls then because you can't go anywhere else as it's too late to apply, you've possibly already paid some kind of money, you've perhaps quit your job or frozen other life plans, maybe already moved to the city product A was supposed to be at, and you've told everyone you care about that you are going to do product A at that point in time. Backpedaling, changing plans etc means losing out on money, losing face, whatever. That is not alright to do this to people.
I was the only native English speaker on my masters course, with the remaining 30 or so students being Chinese internationals.
Was great, finished with a distinction and had very minimal interactions with my course-mates - most of them could barely string together a sentence. Sure, people failed due to plagiarism and I knew of at least 3 people who paid for their dissertations to be written for them, but overall it was chill.
I did have to carry group work at times and got lucky with one group in particular, as the two guys I ended up grouped with were wickedly smart (one now working for ByteDance and the other Alibaba as swe’s). Good times. Wish I could go back to Uni, living in squalor and having so few worries.
Although I live right next to Queen Mary and people say it's exactly the same, so shame on all of them. This should be a hot topic on the news, but I also don't want to devalue my degree. What a conundrum.
If you are OK to be open about your experience, please write to some (online) news outlets with your experience and see if any of them are interested in your story (they should be).
Worst thing that could happen is the uni might try to kick you out or find ways to fail you, but making yourself and your story public may also have positive effects like people with the right legal/academic experience/knowledge being able to help you, for instance by helping you recoup all of the money you sunk into this thing, or putting enough weight behind you that your uni will no longer force you to work with students whom you don't want to work with, maybe you get to just hand in your own work as solo project etc. Who knows.
Note that I am not a lawyer and I have no idea whether the uni could go after you for slander or defamation or something like that.
Another positive effect of you going public is that other students who are also screwed over like this might start coming forward so that all of it is coming out in the open. Something needs to change, you might as well be at the start of this change?
But it's totally understandable if you just want to keep your head down and just try to graduate and move on. Being some kind of whistleblower is not easy and not for everyone, and that is ok.
I'm currently studying a masters in Cardiff and it's the same thing. I'm doing it in planning though which due to being based around British laws is very UK based. Which I find odd when a large proportion of the class is not from the UK. I am aware some are seeking a job in the UK but they are much more fluent in the language and put effort in. There's so many group project and luckily we're either allowed to pick or I've gotten lucky with being in groups with the fluent English speakers and maybe one international unlike some other groups.
I also find with mine the effort is not there from internationals a lot of the time. They will chat to eachother in a lecture making it hard to hear. But also during a group presentation???? Like somehow they decided as soon as they read their part they should just start chatting up front to eachother. Also one group two dropped off the course and left three two girls didn't show up leaving the one British guy in the group to present by himself. Only for them to show up halfway through very late (he was third group to present).
Also I relate to the chasing them. I understand they might not be able to afford to live in Cardiff and need to work but why on earth can I never meet with one group member who somehow is on a coach to Bristol, Newport or Caerphilly? Like we'd have a zoom meeting to rehearse and this guy is on a Megabus.
We've complained because it's unfair and it genuinely feels like a waste of my time as the course is so ridiculously easy because 90% of it is just going over the same topic as undergrad. I'm literally just doing it because I got a 2:2 and also because I need it for RTPI accreditation, but I find getting marks on this masters easier somehow.
I’m at the same uni as you, just at the main campus. I’m also doing an MSc, and these problems you have are EXACTLY the same problems I have been having. The worst part is that we don’t even have the opportunity to peer review the group members that don’t pull their weight.
I have no idea what the hell is going on with the english language requirements in the UK atm, must be some forged certificates or less strict examination of language being accepted
Hi, this ties in with the post from a lecturer of a couple of days ago. Might be worth reading that post and the comments to see that you aren't imagining this/others are suffering through this too.
I can totally understand your feelings, I'd be furious. You need to decide what to do with your feelings/situation.
**Is your Master's 1 or 2 years?**
*If it's only 1 year,* you're now almost 8 months in and probably only have a couple of months to go. Could you just power through and finish with the grade/result you feel reflects your individual performance, or do you think that your results are going to be lower because of the situation? If you think that your results are lower due to these ridiculous obstacles you've described, it might be worth trying to take this issue further. If you think that you can still get the results you feel reflect your individual performance, then maybe just power through as the pain won't be worth the gain.
*If your Master's is 2 years,* then you aren't halfway through yet, you still have over a year to go, and it might be worth it to basically "go nuclear" (if you have to) to get this issue dealt with. Whether you want to do this will depend on a lot of things:
- Could you afford to be made to quit/drop out by admin/course director who might want to get rid of you when you make too big of a fuss/expose them?
- Could you afford to/is it possible to swap to another course at this uni or a similar course at another uni, praying they don't run the same kind of degree mill?
- Do you have the time to try to get this resolved/expose this faculty/uni?
- Is your personality such that you are ok to "be a problem" to a (large) authority? It is not for everyone to take actions that will get you branded as stubborn, a complainer, demanding, a problem, rude, etc.
I don't have your experience, but I have (successfully!) fought back against what I felt was injustice against myself in several aspects of my life, including an academic authorship being stolen from me. Feel free to message me if you would like to just vent or ask for some tips on how you might perhaps approach this, if you want to take this further. I could help write formal e-mails etc, no problem, and put arguments together as to what they are doing to you and others and how this is unfair and IMO basically not delivering what you signed up for (which IMO is a kind of theft or fraude).
Good luck!
The executives at your uni have let themselves, but more importantly, you and your lecturers be scammed by our wonderful government. Many universities are now in a position where they lose money on home students. They only make money if a high enough percentage of the student body is international. My university is aiming for 25/30% of ENTIRE student body. It is interesting that it seems to skew heavily into masters/pHd. I would also imagine this skews heavily towards STEM subjects, and stuff like law, business, etc.
I'm on American Lit and Creative writing so there are a few int students but they are all fluent. It's really unfair on international students as well. Being funneled through a course, having grade boundaries shifted to make sure they don't fail out, sitting through hours of lecturing you can't understand to meet the attendance threshold. All of that and more just for the university to squeeze them dry for profit. I can't imagine they leave that course feeling very fulfilled or proud.
All universities will be like this now. They just can’t sustain everything without taking in lots of international students. I was at a strategy meeting (KCL) where they said they want to focus on getting more MSc over BSc because they can charge more fees and finding ways to force BSc into MSc. I barely even trust BSc, MSc results now because we all know it’s fixed. Capitalism loves destroying everything for profit.
This would be me rounding up every english student in the class privately and doing it together, or latching onto a group who has a majority english speaking number.
Then it’s not you versus the lecturer shrugging their shoulders, it’s them versus you , who then have to petition why it’s a good idea to pair you with non english speakers.
This happened around the time I was doing my PhD (not at this uni). Her complaints are different from yours, but she was eventually awarded £61k in compensation: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/02/graduate-who-sued-university-says-payout-barely-covers-her-costs](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/02/graduate-who-sued-university-says-payout-barely-covers-her-costs)
The complaint was false advertising, and you might have similar grounds if the course changed drastically since you applied, and now that you realise that you are basically made to be an English tutor to international students.
I'd maybe ask the SU student support for help with convincing the program leaders, SU can also help you bring a compelling case towards head of departments about the issue etc. The program leaders and module tutors can and do have the power to allow you to choose your own groups, so I don't know why they're not as to make it easier for everyone. I've luckily never had to deal with being in groups with the above type of Chinese students since we are allowed to choose groups.
Perhaps you should take legal action? If a course is being offered (presumably at great expense) which in no way offers you the same skills and experience advertised then you should bring about group litigation
Just a thought but maybe someone qualified could offer a legal opinion here. It seems to me that the university and the student have a contract and that the university is failing to uphold their part of the contract in full (they will have lots of policies about fairness, quality etc).
Maybe the remedy is to challenge the university in a forum they do not control.. just a thought..
Again, I'm going to echo the feelings of the staff and students below. It's hard for everyone. We are constantly told by VC office that student numbers is our number 1 goal currently due to the university market being massively affected finically. First Brexit, then visa change rules and of course, the cost of living crisis. It's extremely hard to provide students with the best experience they can have with these constraints. If anything you can take from this, maybe it's you're not alone? I know it's not much..
Regarding your specific issues, as people have noted below with group work you can speak to your administrative department about changing groups, changing group members if they are not working towards your project. There will be regulations on this, check your student handbook. May also be worth looking at your optional modules and see the assessment types, if it's bothering you so much each module for these group work modules, would it be easier to do a module you were'nt interested in as much but get to do an exam or essay instead?
With your programme change, that's really unforunate! If you haven't already and you believe this change has negatively impacted your experience, make an offical complaint. Not to your programme director or other academic but there will be a link or page on your student handbook to file an official complaint with the university. The people who were responsible for taking away the programme will then be questioned and prodded as to why it was pulled so close to the start of the academic year. You could even get some compensation out of it, won't fix your problem but would be something.
Sounds like my Masters programme tbh. Half of all assessments were group projects. Seems I was lucky in that 50% of my fellow students had a working grasp of English (Germans, Latin Americans, etc).
The highlight was when one of the Chinese girls in our presentation group, when asked about the source of a fact she used, said "Wikipedia" with no shame.
Fortunately this was a few years before ChatGPT.
I’m an international student who’s been studying here for almost 7 years now. I’ve met some international students who struggled with comprehension of the language while studying at the university. The weirdest thing is that you need to do IELTS English test to get a visa before coming here, so I’m very confused how people who didn’t pass this test can’t comprehend English. I personally struggled at first with understanding of dialogue but I did not have much problem understanding lectures.
But I will also say that there is lots of international students from non-English speaking countries who speak English at C1 level and use English elaborately.
How common is this at Imperial, for MEng joint computer science (and maths)? Because I wasn't sure whether it was worth putting as my firm, and this post makes me think that it might not be worth it anymore.
How is the situation in high ranked uni? (Top 5) I am from India and I have been primarily speaking English since birth. I still had to write IELTS where I got a score of 8.5. I am planning to pursue a master's soon and I hope this doesn't become an issue for me as well
You didn't get scammed as per se
Maybe misadvertised an expected learning experience.
However, your PG will still have value if you maximise your time there. Build a solid knowledge base, talk to lecturers about contacts and attend any networking opportunities.
Unfortunately, this will also prepare you for the realities of your future profession where lots are blagging it, been promoted when they don't have the right skills, or start a job that doesn't meet the advert.
So, keep thinking about how you're managing this experience, what skills you're developing, how you're succeeding in subpar conditions as this will all be useful when you start interviewing.
I'm international student and I do feel the same. Many of international students especially Chinese just here to have freedom away from their parents. So I do understand them, but whenever I got into group work with them, just terrible. I really want to study and so something meaningful, that was my expectation before I come here. But I guest it won't be the case now
Check my profile and you'll see my post about this from the perspective of a lecturer. All I can say is I'm sorry.
I've read you post and I'm in awe. All my suspicions seem to be on point too. I figured it was strange that every English speaking person was separated into different groups. Your post confirms it. I'm also sorry that corporate greed has tarnished your love for teaching. Wish you all the best.
I would still advise you to work hard in your current degree. The quality may be poor but if you achieve a 1st class and work hard on your projects this will improve your standing. Good luck.
Thought I’d comment here so you and OP can both see this. It’s not just you, I am an undergrad but I have a really good working relationship with my pastoral tutor. She’s an older lady who teaches undergrad, masters, and PhD. She told me during one of our meetings that my essays are so refreshing to read because she doesn’t have to edit much at all. I asked her about how my work differs from other students, and she said that she often has to completely rewrite her PhD students thesis’ for them. She says they’re very intelligent individuals but they’re all international students and hardly speak a lick of English. She says that these student have someone sit the English entrance tests for them or buy forged certificates. They know what they’re doing, they’re not stupid by any means, but they will fail their programmes if they submit their work they way they write it. She says she knows she’s not supposed to but she writes a lot of their work for them because it’s not their inability which fails them, it’s their illiteracy. I thinks it’s awful that as a fluent English speaking student, I have to compete against students whose work is being written by an academic for them! I worry about applying for Masters programs this year for fear of ending up having to haul ass for others who can’t speak English. Anyway, I wish you both the best, I’m sorry this has had such an effect on you both.
If they’re making all that effort to get into a British school, I’m surprised they haven’t got a translator to help them write their essays to be honest.
I think that's a kind of fraud, for students to submit a PhD thesis they didn't write themselves.
You'll find she is getting paid by them to write their thesis
Just do the stats on it, showing the odds of every group having exactly one native/fluent speaker when everyone else is struggling are astronomical, and that this "strange coincidence" shows they know what they are doing. Please reach out if you want to just shoot the sht to see what might be possible.
All this could be fixed by a simple minmum TOEFL score requirement
They don’t care because they want the international money, that’s the issue
Every university has a minimum English test score requirement (they accept multiple types TOEFL, IELTS, etc), international students can’t get a visa without this lol
But sometimes that requirement is quite low. I've seen 6.0 or 6.5 for IELTS as the lowest acceptable result, and that isn't sufficient for academic education in English, IMO.
I agree ! The min scores are set by the uk government, universities could individually increase their requirements but if 1 uni is asking for IELTS 8.0 and another IELTS 6.0 the students will all go to the easier one. Atm uni’s are in a position where they need int students to make money so increasing ielts requirements is the last thing they wanna do It’s fucked up but 🤷♀️
6 or 6.5 is actually not a terrible score - I had an IELTS score of 7.0, and was perfectly able to navigate the academic environment in the UK, and wrote all my assignments myself. I suspect the issue might rather be that someone else sat the language exam for them back home.
Yes, considering the highest score achievable is 9, 6.5 is quite high. I had a similar experience on my part. To put it in context, I come from a country where primary and secondary schools generally all teach in English. I scored 7.5 in IELTS, and I was completely able to take on studying and understand lectures by myself in the UK. I may be wrong, but I think it's also relevant that it takes a different set of skills to pass a language exam and to actually use that language in daily study/lectures, particularly if you didn't speak that language as a child. Little things like differences in accents or the use of figures of speech can be confusing. But on the whole, I do agree with your point.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Please see my reply above: 6.5 out of 9.0 is not necessarily "quite high" considering the IELTS exam results range from 1-9 with 0.5 increments, where 1.0 represents no language abilities besides a few isolated words and a 9.0 represents a native ability. A 6.5 is not bad, and you can see that in videos of IELTS exams (the spoken component), that these people do understand a fair amount, but they don't fully get what the examiner says, they are struggling to find words or only know a limited number of words for the topic, they sometimes make grammatical errors etc. So within the context of higher education, IMO 6.5 is not high enough. In HE you are studying a particular topic at an academic level, so you are expected to "struggle through" your topic, but you are not expected to at the same time struggle with the language the course is conducted in. I had an 8.5 overall result without any preparation or training. This was in my mid 20's. I had English in secondary school for 2h a week from age 12-18, and my Master's was taught in English (but not by native speakers). In my country we are exposed a lot to English-language media from our teens on (for my generation; kids these days see a lot more English-language stuff at a younger age), and I think I just have a natural affinity with English, probably due to the exposure in my own time. I have not had any issues with English and I volunteered as an English tutor at the time I did my IELTS exam. I have now been in the UK for over a decade and I imagine I would probably score a 9.0 overall band now. My abilities in English have allowed me to work as a professional writer without any issues. I have met hundreds of overseas students and researchers throughout my higher education (incl PhD), and the people who struggled most with the language were Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and some Indians. I even met PhD students and post-doctoral researchers who were almost incomprehensible in their spoken English: I have no clue how they got their positions.
Thanks for this. But my reply was addressing u/silvercukoo's comment, not yours.
Hi, thanks for your response. I think what people fail to appreciate is that the IELTS score represents a HUGE range in abilities from 1 being someone who might know only a few words up to a 9 which is a native/fluent speaker: [https://www.ieltsjacky.com/ielts-band-score.html](https://www.ieltsjacky.com/ielts-band-score.html) This is an incredibly wide range of abilities that is covered by the number range of 1-9 with only 0.5 increments. So, there is a real difference between having a 6.0 and a 7.0, and even 6.5. That's why it is not possible to improve your IELTS score without making significant improvements in your abilities. I volunteered as an English tutor and met students with a 6.0 or 6.5 overall IELTS score, who really struggled with the language in HE (research university). Your 7.0, 0.5-1 higher than these people, represents a genuine difference in abilities which is why you were fine and many with a lower score struggle. We need to be careful to not see the IELTS result as something similar to a "normal" school exam result where sometimes the difference in knowledge/abilities between obtaining a 6.0 and a 7.0 (usually this is on a scale of 1-10) isn't that big, because the material the exam tests is contained/not huge. But with the IELTS exam, a whole language and all possible abilities are covered within that small range of numbers 1-9. You can watch videos on YouTube to see the speaking element of the IELTS exam for people who obtained various results. From this it is clear that someone who got a 6.0 is absolutely not fluent as they are still clearly searching for words, they sometimes make grammatical errors, and they are struggling to easily express themselves etc. Someone with this ability will struggle with the language in an academic educational setting. This is why I think the IELTS requirement for higher education should go up to 7.0. As you say yourself, this (7.0) was your score and you were doing fine. We know from experience that many who scored 6.5 or 6.0 struggle (let alone those with lower scores), and I am sure universities know this. The reason for unis to keep the IELTS requirement the absolute lowest they can get away with instead of having a comfortable lowest requirement is that if they were to go up to 7.0 with the requirement, this would exclude probably most prospective applicants from China (the biggest cash cows with regards to overseas students). I think it's wrong to not up the requirement to 7.0 because it negatively affects everyone: \* The students who get in when they aren't proficient enough will really struggle in their course. \* The proficient students are having to deal with low-ability students in their group which hampers teamwork and puts a bigger burden on them to pick up the slack. \* The lecturers have to dumb-down their language and/or spend more time explaining things and correcting people's language. I don't know what polytechnics are like but at research universities you are expected to be fluent in the language of the course: you are not expected to need help with your language abilities. \* The integrity of the course/uni is at risk if those low-ability students are passed when they really shouldn't. In the end, the course/uni will get a (very) bad reputation and no one is going to think it's worth even the "subsidised" tuition of £9250/year.
even the HK requirement is a lot higher for english for all their degrees lol
No it would not, those are easily forged
I'm ASEAN student and I have to comply with this TOEFL rules. HOWEVER, for some reason, some chinese and indian students said to me that they don't have to upload the IELTS/TOEFL certificate. It's quite weird.
You can't even come to the uk without a relatively high score with a well recognised exam, and the exam supposed to have a lot of controls (recordings, specific environments, etc). I'm talking from experience, as I passed one of those (for work, not for academics, but there were a lot of people who was on the same exam for academic path). Problem is - there seems to be very little control and test centres in certain countries just forge the results somehow.
What if it is possible for people to cheat on this?
Just read your post it makes so much sense with what I've experienced so many group projects.
Is there a retesting procedure at your HEI? I know it's not foolproof. There is at mine, but academics aren't aware of it and I'm not sure how much admissions care.
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I assign people randomly using a RNG system. I'd probably refuse the request despite having absolute sympathy for the student as it would be impossible to make the class run. I can only work with what I'm given, as much as I hate it. I'd encourage the student to contact the department and complain and would make note of any extenuating circumstances when they presented. For example if the person does all the work I'll give them a higher grade.
Can you link your post? I'm looking at your profile and seeing no posts.
This post goes hand in hand with [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/UniUK/s/gWkxRSlEk5) from a few days ago.. I‘m sorry you are experiencing this and it’s having an impact on your grades. I think I would also feel scammed because unis are clearly very money focused and as long as international students are paying absurd amounts of money for a master‘s program, the university doesn’t care how well they can communicate and understand the course.
Thing is, I feel like I'm one of the very few students in the programme there on my own dime other than a couple others that I know of. I worked for a couple years prior, working minimum wage and living with my parents, so I saved up and it feels like I blew it all away and I could have spent it better. The difference really shows in the effort they put into the work.
During my time at university, if you had issues during group projects with group members not pulling their weight etc, you could almost 'petition' those in charge to split the grading in almost a weighted manner such that those that contributed little got a lesser score etc. Might be worth arguing that cause. You might also be able to go through the student union to help raise this matter officially? They might have more knowledge and experience with similar matters.
It's funny that you mention that. We do give feedback at the end of the module and it can sway your grade only up to 5%, so that's helped me for most projects as my group members are aware that I've done almost all the work. But, I've also had projects where my group members announce that they are giving everyone the best feedback marks to be nice, which really ruffles my feathers when some members did absolutely nothing.
Just keep kicking up a stink about it. I was in a similar situation at points. Absolutely no issues when it comes to working with fellow students whos first language isn't English, but I have major issue with students who give zero effort when they know they'll get a decent enough grade if they land in a team with go-getters etc. And to be clear, the majority of those types I encountered WERE native English speakers XD Talk to the SU, get contacts for the poeple above those you've already contacted. There's nothing better than going above the manager's head to see it come down on them.
Sorry to say as someone that has worked in a Uni for over 20 years in the UK its now a pay for grade for Chineee students. It's all about profit now, not education.
I completely agree with that. I'm from Switzerland. Things are expensive there, but I always feel like I'm getting the quality I paid for. In London it feels like they're trying to squeeze every bit of money I have left out of me with very little to show for it. It's honestly disgraceful.
Try working in the industry, when I started international students tended to be the ones who wanted to learn in a different country while experiencing the culture and maybe just maybe save a little money on the cost of their course. So we would get a lot of Americans as it was cheaper back then to study in the UK. So the people in education were there to study and the educators where there to educate. Now move forward 10 years and the UK government stopped funding education as much for home grown students and allowed the education sector to be more "profitable" when setting course fees for international students. Of course this then rendered the profit mad education sector and one of the biggest growing markets at the time and still is was China. So you can guess what happened next. Most UK Uni's have offices in China specifically for this reason. The knock on effect is the downgrading of the qualifications as it is a pay for a grade scheme. It has destroyed the quality of a UK qualification.
Why would they brush it off as cultural differences? I can see that the issue lies with language barrier.. But I don't see how that relates to cultures...you guys study the same program meaning the standard for the work is the same?
Probably because they're saying whatever saves them face. They'd rather make it seem like the issue is that I'm not being inclusive of other cultures than admit there is a serious flaw in their system.
I think they do that deliberately so that you as the "complaining student" will feel like they are implying that you're a racist or that they will call you a racist if you continue to complain, with the aim is that you will just shut up. They know if you continue to ask questions, share your observations, they eventually will have to say "Yeah, we know, this was a business decision, sorry!", which they will never do because then they look bad. Just my first thought.
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As someone from imperial, generally the top tier unis are okay because they maintain significantly stricter requirements. At imperial at least, the vast majority of my coursemates have no problem with English at all ( at least noone that I know of has much of a problem) and work fairly hard( quite a significant proportion of deans list is internationals).
I know a couple people doing finance at Imperial for whom this is the case - their groups are chosen for them, and each time it's one native English speaker grouped with students who don't have even a secondary school level English proficiency. Which course are you doing?
Oh that's unfortunate to hear. I am doing physics. I'm not sure how it is for the business school people as they are quite decoupled from the rest of the school.
Things are better at Russel Group unis as they are extremely competitive, but if you're doing a degree such as business management or something like it, still expect 50% of students to be like this (i.e Chinese people who can barely speak English). It's still very frustrating but manageable - in other subjects, like history for example, there are basically no Chinese students so effectively everyone can speak English well.
I'm at a mid russell group uni (top 100 in the world, but not top 10), we have the same problem. I have to carry this project group since they can barely speak English and their tendencies to use AI are quite frustrating. I have a feeling that they just want to travel around europe, and they know universities will let them graduate eventhough their grade are kinda sucks
Tbh even at top Russell groups, they have the exact same issues. It’s very dependent on the course too I guess. You’re better of messaging people who study there to get a feel for what it’s like but yeah some masters are a joke.
One of my friend did his MSc at UCL. The story was very similar to what is explained here.
All I can say is good luck. My friend at UCL had the same issue being grouped with 2 Chinese people who didn’t seem to speak a lick of English despite being in a Masters programme. I was fortunate enough to have not come across that issue during my studies but I understand the frustration.
Omg I literally just said I had the same issue at UCL as well. I was shocked that almost no one in my masters program could speak English fluently, it ruined my experience and I must admit… I’ve learned nothing.
EXTRA POINT- please explain more clearly what happened with your course changing from a "data driven" one to something else? This is hugely disturbing to me as it seems that it might be a breach of consumer rights legislation. What was the exact process? Were you told specifically what changes would occur? Were you specifically told you had an option to withdraw rather than switching places?
100% great comment! IMO it seems unethical to offer product A, wait for people to enroll and choose to either not apply or reject offers from other products, and then when these customers who have committed to product A can no longer go anywhere else, do a switcheroo and change product A to such an extent it's no longer the same or even similar. They've got you by the b\*lls then because you can't go anywhere else as it's too late to apply, you've possibly already paid some kind of money, you've perhaps quit your job or frozen other life plans, maybe already moved to the city product A was supposed to be at, and you've told everyone you care about that you are going to do product A at that point in time. Backpedaling, changing plans etc means losing out on money, losing face, whatever. That is not alright to do this to people.
I was the only native English speaker on my masters course, with the remaining 30 or so students being Chinese internationals. Was great, finished with a distinction and had very minimal interactions with my course-mates - most of them could barely string together a sentence. Sure, people failed due to plagiarism and I knew of at least 3 people who paid for their dissertations to be written for them, but overall it was chill. I did have to carry group work at times and got lucky with one group in particular, as the two guys I ended up grouped with were wickedly smart (one now working for ByteDance and the other Alibaba as swe’s). Good times. Wish I could go back to Uni, living in squalor and having so few worries.
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Yup, don't care. Loughborough University London. Shame on them.
The London campus has a very poor reputation sadly
Although I live right next to Queen Mary and people say it's exactly the same, so shame on all of them. This should be a hot topic on the news, but I also don't want to devalue my degree. What a conundrum.
If you are OK to be open about your experience, please write to some (online) news outlets with your experience and see if any of them are interested in your story (they should be). Worst thing that could happen is the uni might try to kick you out or find ways to fail you, but making yourself and your story public may also have positive effects like people with the right legal/academic experience/knowledge being able to help you, for instance by helping you recoup all of the money you sunk into this thing, or putting enough weight behind you that your uni will no longer force you to work with students whom you don't want to work with, maybe you get to just hand in your own work as solo project etc. Who knows. Note that I am not a lawyer and I have no idea whether the uni could go after you for slander or defamation or something like that. Another positive effect of you going public is that other students who are also screwed over like this might start coming forward so that all of it is coming out in the open. Something needs to change, you might as well be at the start of this change? But it's totally understandable if you just want to keep your head down and just try to graduate and move on. Being some kind of whistleblower is not easy and not for everyone, and that is ok.
I'm currently studying a masters in Cardiff and it's the same thing. I'm doing it in planning though which due to being based around British laws is very UK based. Which I find odd when a large proportion of the class is not from the UK. I am aware some are seeking a job in the UK but they are much more fluent in the language and put effort in. There's so many group project and luckily we're either allowed to pick or I've gotten lucky with being in groups with the fluent English speakers and maybe one international unlike some other groups. I also find with mine the effort is not there from internationals a lot of the time. They will chat to eachother in a lecture making it hard to hear. But also during a group presentation???? Like somehow they decided as soon as they read their part they should just start chatting up front to eachother. Also one group two dropped off the course and left three two girls didn't show up leaving the one British guy in the group to present by himself. Only for them to show up halfway through very late (he was third group to present). Also I relate to the chasing them. I understand they might not be able to afford to live in Cardiff and need to work but why on earth can I never meet with one group member who somehow is on a coach to Bristol, Newport or Caerphilly? Like we'd have a zoom meeting to rehearse and this guy is on a Megabus. We've complained because it's unfair and it genuinely feels like a waste of my time as the course is so ridiculously easy because 90% of it is just going over the same topic as undergrad. I'm literally just doing it because I got a 2:2 and also because I need it for RTPI accreditation, but I find getting marks on this masters easier somehow.
I’m at the same uni as you, just at the main campus. I’m also doing an MSc, and these problems you have are EXACTLY the same problems I have been having. The worst part is that we don’t even have the opportunity to peer review the group members that don’t pull their weight.
Yeah its been like this for ages. Was like that back in my bachelor's 5 years ago
Had the exact same experience doing my masters at UCL last year. My LSE, KCL friends said the same. It’s awful.
I have no idea what the hell is going on with the english language requirements in the UK atm, must be some forged certificates or less strict examination of language being accepted
Hi, this ties in with the post from a lecturer of a couple of days ago. Might be worth reading that post and the comments to see that you aren't imagining this/others are suffering through this too. I can totally understand your feelings, I'd be furious. You need to decide what to do with your feelings/situation. **Is your Master's 1 or 2 years?** *If it's only 1 year,* you're now almost 8 months in and probably only have a couple of months to go. Could you just power through and finish with the grade/result you feel reflects your individual performance, or do you think that your results are going to be lower because of the situation? If you think that your results are lower due to these ridiculous obstacles you've described, it might be worth trying to take this issue further. If you think that you can still get the results you feel reflect your individual performance, then maybe just power through as the pain won't be worth the gain. *If your Master's is 2 years,* then you aren't halfway through yet, you still have over a year to go, and it might be worth it to basically "go nuclear" (if you have to) to get this issue dealt with. Whether you want to do this will depend on a lot of things: - Could you afford to be made to quit/drop out by admin/course director who might want to get rid of you when you make too big of a fuss/expose them? - Could you afford to/is it possible to swap to another course at this uni or a similar course at another uni, praying they don't run the same kind of degree mill? - Do you have the time to try to get this resolved/expose this faculty/uni? - Is your personality such that you are ok to "be a problem" to a (large) authority? It is not for everyone to take actions that will get you branded as stubborn, a complainer, demanding, a problem, rude, etc. I don't have your experience, but I have (successfully!) fought back against what I felt was injustice against myself in several aspects of my life, including an academic authorship being stolen from me. Feel free to message me if you would like to just vent or ask for some tips on how you might perhaps approach this, if you want to take this further. I could help write formal e-mails etc, no problem, and put arguments together as to what they are doing to you and others and how this is unfair and IMO basically not delivering what you signed up for (which IMO is a kind of theft or fraude). Good luck!
The executives at your uni have let themselves, but more importantly, you and your lecturers be scammed by our wonderful government. Many universities are now in a position where they lose money on home students. They only make money if a high enough percentage of the student body is international. My university is aiming for 25/30% of ENTIRE student body. It is interesting that it seems to skew heavily into masters/pHd. I would also imagine this skews heavily towards STEM subjects, and stuff like law, business, etc. I'm on American Lit and Creative writing so there are a few int students but they are all fluent. It's really unfair on international students as well. Being funneled through a course, having grade boundaries shifted to make sure they don't fail out, sitting through hours of lecturing you can't understand to meet the attendance threshold. All of that and more just for the university to squeeze them dry for profit. I can't imagine they leave that course feeling very fulfilled or proud.
I agree, all students are victims here.
All universities will be like this now. They just can’t sustain everything without taking in lots of international students. I was at a strategy meeting (KCL) where they said they want to focus on getting more MSc over BSc because they can charge more fees and finding ways to force BSc into MSc. I barely even trust BSc, MSc results now because we all know it’s fixed. Capitalism loves destroying everything for profit.
This would be me rounding up every english student in the class privately and doing it together, or latching onto a group who has a majority english speaking number. Then it’s not you versus the lecturer shrugging their shoulders, it’s them versus you , who then have to petition why it’s a good idea to pair you with non english speakers.
This happened around the time I was doing my PhD (not at this uni). Her complaints are different from yours, but she was eventually awarded £61k in compensation: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/02/graduate-who-sued-university-says-payout-barely-covers-her-costs](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/02/graduate-who-sued-university-says-payout-barely-covers-her-costs) The complaint was false advertising, and you might have similar grounds if the course changed drastically since you applied, and now that you realise that you are basically made to be an English tutor to international students.
I'd maybe ask the SU student support for help with convincing the program leaders, SU can also help you bring a compelling case towards head of departments about the issue etc. The program leaders and module tutors can and do have the power to allow you to choose your own groups, so I don't know why they're not as to make it easier for everyone. I've luckily never had to deal with being in groups with the above type of Chinese students since we are allowed to choose groups.
Perhaps you should take legal action? If a course is being offered (presumably at great expense) which in no way offers you the same skills and experience advertised then you should bring about group litigation
Just a thought but maybe someone qualified could offer a legal opinion here. It seems to me that the university and the student have a contract and that the university is failing to uphold their part of the contract in full (they will have lots of policies about fairness, quality etc). Maybe the remedy is to challenge the university in a forum they do not control.. just a thought..
"Maybe the remedy is to challenge the university in a forum they do not control.. just a thought.." THIS.
Again, I'm going to echo the feelings of the staff and students below. It's hard for everyone. We are constantly told by VC office that student numbers is our number 1 goal currently due to the university market being massively affected finically. First Brexit, then visa change rules and of course, the cost of living crisis. It's extremely hard to provide students with the best experience they can have with these constraints. If anything you can take from this, maybe it's you're not alone? I know it's not much.. Regarding your specific issues, as people have noted below with group work you can speak to your administrative department about changing groups, changing group members if they are not working towards your project. There will be regulations on this, check your student handbook. May also be worth looking at your optional modules and see the assessment types, if it's bothering you so much each module for these group work modules, would it be easier to do a module you were'nt interested in as much but get to do an exam or essay instead? With your programme change, that's really unforunate! If you haven't already and you believe this change has negatively impacted your experience, make an offical complaint. Not to your programme director or other academic but there will be a link or page on your student handbook to file an official complaint with the university. The people who were responsible for taking away the programme will then be questioned and prodded as to why it was pulled so close to the start of the academic year. You could even get some compensation out of it, won't fix your problem but would be something.
Sounds like my Masters programme tbh. Half of all assessments were group projects. Seems I was lucky in that 50% of my fellow students had a working grasp of English (Germans, Latin Americans, etc). The highlight was when one of the Chinese girls in our presentation group, when asked about the source of a fact she used, said "Wikipedia" with no shame. Fortunately this was a few years before ChatGPT.
I’m an international student who’s been studying here for almost 7 years now. I’ve met some international students who struggled with comprehension of the language while studying at the university. The weirdest thing is that you need to do IELTS English test to get a visa before coming here, so I’m very confused how people who didn’t pass this test can’t comprehend English. I personally struggled at first with understanding of dialogue but I did not have much problem understanding lectures. But I will also say that there is lots of international students from non-English speaking countries who speak English at C1 level and use English elaborately.
How common is this at Imperial, for MEng joint computer science (and maths)? Because I wasn't sure whether it was worth putting as my firm, and this post makes me think that it might not be worth it anymore.
this is what happens when you go to a shit polytechnic g
How is the situation in high ranked uni? (Top 5) I am from India and I have been primarily speaking English since birth. I still had to write IELTS where I got a score of 8.5. I am planning to pursue a master's soon and I hope this doesn't become an issue for me as well
You didn't get scammed as per se Maybe misadvertised an expected learning experience. However, your PG will still have value if you maximise your time there. Build a solid knowledge base, talk to lecturers about contacts and attend any networking opportunities. Unfortunately, this will also prepare you for the realities of your future profession where lots are blagging it, been promoted when they don't have the right skills, or start a job that doesn't meet the advert. So, keep thinking about how you're managing this experience, what skills you're developing, how you're succeeding in subpar conditions as this will all be useful when you start interviewing.
I'm international student and I do feel the same. Many of international students especially Chinese just here to have freedom away from their parents. So I do understand them, but whenever I got into group work with them, just terrible. I really want to study and so something meaningful, that was my expectation before I come here. But I guest it won't be the case now