This post is part of a multi-part series on University Entrance and whether it is set at the right standard. For the previous part, click here - History, Reviews, and the Perspective of Government.
Why do students, parents, and teachers care so much about university anyway?
Why do students, parents, and teachers care so much about university anyway?
This might seem like a bit of a dumb question;
invariably the reasons have something to do with “success”, whether that is
becoming a professional, getting a good job, making lots of money, or something
similar. Everyone has a general feeling that a university education means that
you’ll have a better life than if you don’t have one. Some people say that your
entire future and livelihood rests in the balance of whether you get a degree
or not. But beyond anecdotal evidence, most people wouldn’t be able to say with
certainty how much value a university education has. After all, university
education is an investment; a student spends (and/or loans) tens of thousands
of dollars and gives up some of the most productive years of their life, just
to sit in dusty lecture theatres and bumble their way through assessment. Is it
actually worth it in the end? We talked in the previous blog post about
university graduation numbers correlating with average productivity on a macro
level; does university education still produce tangible and measurable benefits
at the individual level?
Is
university worth the investment?
Luckily, I’ve asked this question
before as part of A
Policy A Day: Free Tertiary Education. The Ministry
of Social Development reports that individuals with a Bachelor's degree
have hourly earnings 64% higher than those with no qualifications. If you have
a degree, you’re much more likely to be employed, you’re more
likely to be healthier, and you’re likely to have a higher standard of
living. Statisticians make graphs like this one, showing living standards
separated by highest qualification:
However, it is important to note
that this is for the general case; some degrees will pay for themselves, but
others may not. Barack Obama said in a speech to GE employees “folks can make a
lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might
with an art history degree” (for which he later apologised).
Due to the supply and demand of the labour markets, it’s probably true that a
trade certification may be a better investment than an art history degree. Statistics
New Zealand looked at the “earnings premium” (how much more someone earns
because of their degree) of various Bachelor’s degrees in comparison to
agriculture (three (red) and five (yellow) years after study):
The differences are statistically
significant enough for us to say that different degrees have different
financial returns. Of course, long-term financial benefit isn’t the top
priority for all students, and university does satisfy different needs for
different students.
Interestingly, having too
many graduates could also be a bad thing for graduates
and for the economy in general. In some parts of Europe, university enrolment
grew by as much as 50% between 1990 and 2005, and the result was that the
skilled labour market was saturated. Along with a reasonably high minimum wage,
this meant that university graduates were worth almost no more than people who
hadn’t gone to university, making university a poor investment decision for
them. In other words, if they hadn’t gone to university they would have been
earning (almost) the same amount of money, so they might as well not have
bothered. The situation was dire enough to make the Ministry
of Social Development concerned about the continued increase in
levels of participation and attainment at the tertiary level in New Zealand
back in 2007.
So is university worth the investment? At least in New
Zealand, the answer seems to be yes, so students and parents have good reason
to be worried about university and UE if raising the standard means they might
be blocked out.
Wait,
too many students could be a problem?
Cultural perceptions of university education have
certainly changed over the last generation. Apart from the perception that
university education is a “must-have” for a “successful” life, there are
increasing numbers of young people who view university education as a right,
not a privilege. They say that university education should be available to any
young person who wants it; moving more towards the extreme end of the scale are
calls for fully-funded education (i.e. no fees) and higher living allowances.
If university education is a pre-requisite for success in later life, then we
should not be preventing anyone from having a chance at success.
A challenge for government and for universities is
what happens when the growth of interest in university education outpaces the
capacity for students. Unfortunately, there are real logistical and practical
limitations to providing university education. We only have to look at the two
medical schools and the problems with bottlenecks there. At the University of
Auckland, over a thousand first-year students compete for 275 places in
medicine. The main limitation? There need to be enough doctors and consultants
available already working in the medical system to supervise and teach the
students during placements.
Additionally, there generally is some trade-off
between number of students and the overall quality of the education provided;
as the number of students increases (by lowering the entrance standard), the
average ability of the cohort decreases, and the teaching staff have to lower
the level of their content to maintain appropriate pass levels. It puts
students and parents in a tricky dilemma – entry requirements should be low
enough so that they can get into university, but not so low that it compromises
the quality of their education. Some students and parents can be very
individualistically minded when it comes to education – the standard needs to
be at the right place for me (or my child), regardless of what that means for
other students.
How
big is the mismatch between intention to study and capacity?
Participation
in tertiary education (as a proportion of the population aged
over 15) has increased from 7.9% in 1994 to a peak of 13.7% in 2005 (it
currently sits at roughly 10-11%). That means a lot more places for students,
and a lot more funding and resources being poured into tertiary education. It’s
reasonably large growth, but it doesn’t appear to be enough.
In the Western Bay of
Plenty Region, 70% of students surveyed in 2008
intended to achieve a Diploma or Degree level qualification. However, in 2009
only 41.7% of students achieved
University Entrance. Only 30% of school leavers go
on to study at university. While not all Diploma/Degree level
qualifications are awarded at universities, it is a reasonable conclusion that
there are far more people wanting to go to university than actually attending.
School leavers’ intentions are only sporadically measured (both in a
geographical and a temporal sense), so it’s a little difficult to make a strong
claim.
What
about the underprivileged and minority groups?
This is one of the big areas of concern with regards
to the change in UE. By raising the standard, the majority of high-achieving
students are not affected. The majority of low-achieving students are also not
affected, because they would not have met the standard previously anyway. The
students that are affected are a large chunk in the middle, and it’s important
to look at who is in that middle “average” group.
Statistically,
Asians and Pakeha are much more likely to achieve UE than Maori and Pasifika
(although the percentage of school leavers with UE is increasing in all ethnic
groups). There is a clear correlation between school decile and percentage of
school leavers with UE. So chances are, by raising the UE standard, the
students that are affected are more likely to be from lower socio-economic
backgrounds and from disadvantaged groups. The recent UE increase is being
watched closely to see if it has had any negative impact on “equity target
groups”. If it does, then there will have to be some other form of correction,
such as an alternative entry pathway.
What
were student perceptions towards the proposed UE change?
Normally, the NZQA doesn’t really consult with
students about changes to standards. Students are allowed to send in
submissions and are by no means excluded from the process, but their opinion is
not actively sought either (normally). However, when the UE changes were
proposed in 2010, the Ministry
of Youth Development (MYD) offered to consult with young
people to get their opinions. They surveyed 154 students, mostly between the
ages of 13 and 18, both online and face-to-face. Here’s a top level summary of
the relevant results:
- NCEA Level 3 should be part of UE: 53.2% agree, 36.4% disagree
- 14 credits from each of 3 approved subjects: 46.8% agree, 45.5% disagree
- Proposed numeracy requirement: 46.8% agree, 36.4% disagree
- “Do you think the proposed changes to the UE requirements are fair and reasonable?”: 48.7% agree, 29.2% disagree
- 14 credits from each of 3 approved subjects: 46.8% agree, 45.5% disagree
- Proposed numeracy requirement: 46.8% agree, 36.4% disagree
- “Do you think the proposed changes to the UE requirements are fair and reasonable?”: 48.7% agree, 29.2% disagree
As is evident from these results, there was majority
support in general for the changes from the surveyed students, although by no
means was that support unanimous. There was an open-ended qualitative comment
for each question, which show that there was a wide variety of reasons for why
students agreed or disagreed with the questions. As would be expected, some
respondents clearly put a lot more effort into their answers than others, but
there were some very passionate responses. It’s hard to synthesise the
open-ended responses into meaningful groups, but in general:
- those that were supportive of the changes seemed to
be higher achieving students, who were generally above the standard anyway and
couldn’t see why raising the standard would make things more difficult. In one
case, a student wrote “[UE] is not a difficult thing to do, and it is in no way
asking too much for NZ students.”
- those that were opposed to the changes seemed to be
either those that advocated for equality of access to university education, or
those that felt that the proposed UE standard would be too hard (with the
caveat that many students thought the numeracy requirement was too low). One
student wrote “UE is fairly hard to get already and some of the proposed
changes would make it near impossible for some of the "middle of the
road" students let alone the not so capable ones.”
What
were teacher perceptions towards the UE change?
NZQA consulted widely on the changes to UE, and
teachers were certainly involved in that process. After NCEA results were
released in January and the magnitude of the change became evident, teachers
were probably not all that happy. The Post-Primary
Teachers Association (PPTA) said that “while the changes made
to lift the bar for UE was a good thing”, the changes “may not have had the
desired impact”. The general
belief is that there were probably some students who should have gotten
into university and would have been capable, but missed out through no fault of
their own, simply because the system as it exists does not recognise their
ability. The NZQA has said that making NCEA Level 3 a part of UE was probably
the right move, but the other requirements might need to be revised.
The problem that has been identified by the PPTA is
the requirement for 14 credits in each of three subjects from the approved list
of subjects. Previously, there was a requirement for 14 credits in two
subjects, and 14 credits from a mixture of other related subjects (sometimes
known as a “third subject”). Schools created customised courses that drew
achievement standards from multiple “subjects”. Angela Roberts, the President
of the PPTA, gave two examples; a performing arts course that has some
music, some dance, and some theatre standards, and an agricultural course that
includes some economics and accounting to ensure that the student has some
business knowledge. The credits from such a course would have previously fit the
requirements for a “third subject”, but simply because the achievement
standards don’t come from a single NZQA subject, they don’t meet the new
requirements.
For 2015 at least, universities will be looking at
students on a case-by-case basis for those who did miss out on UE, and giving
them discretionary entry; but from the perspective of teachers (and the NZQA),
this is a problem that will need to be corrected for the future. As a result,
they have called for the NZQA to review University Entrance again, to ensure
that it is “fit for purpose”.
So
at what standard do students, parents, and teachers want University Entrance to
be?
Judging from the responses in the student survey and
taking into account the other factors above, they probably want the UE standard
to be somewhere in-between where it was before and where it is now, although
probably towards the lower end of that spectrum. There is some support for
raising the standard, but it’s probably gone too high to satisfy the interests
of students, parents, and teachers as a broad group. As always, it’s very hard
to characterise a very diverse group of people who each hold different
opinions, so this is just a rough generalisation of the views. Of course, nobody likes failing, and sometimes the government and
educators have to take the views, no matter how irrational, of upset students
and angry parents into account.
So in this post, we’ve looked at some of the
perspectives of students and their parents, why they care so much about
university, the tangible benefits of university education, shifting cultural
perceptions, problems with growth, the mismatch between the number of people
who want to study and those who ultimately do, the effects on disadvantaged
groups, student perceptions as measured by the MYD, and the perceptions of
teachers. In the next section, we’ll look at the perspectives of university and
university students.
Part V of this series - Universities and University Students, is available here.
Part V of this series - Universities and University Students, is available here.
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