I have been a "professional student" for the last 10 or so years. I am busy with my fourth degree. I am not 30 yet. The goal is to find a job in academia, thus the long journey. Finding a job in South Africa is challenging for many reasons. Besides the politics, what I find challenging is maneuvering through the internal politics and the associated financial systems that undergird the academic system. And now I am questioning the whole notion of education and the university and it is slowly killing me.
When you think about education, you normally think about the transference of knowledge. The teacher/lecturer knows something and the student lacks that knowledge. With the addition of the calculator, the internet, and now ChatGPT and cohorts, education is continually questioned. Currently, the whole educational system is in an existential crisis. Where I work, most of the "take home" assignments are scratched and students are forced to write essays with a pen in a classroom devoid of the internet.
The student is actively prohibited from a learning environment because the lecturer cannot sufficiently do her job. Should the lecturer and teacher not immediately spot when a student did not understand the work and relegated it to an AI chatbot? I asked ChatGPT to write me essays using only the questions as prompts and it could not even get close to a 50% score. (That said, I know that philosophy and my field in philosophy cannot necessarily be extrapolated to all.)
This is the first year in which I am solely responsible for a module. And how do I wish that the students actually used ChatGPT and her cohorts. Because for the life of me, I do not know how students can climb the ranks for so long with their horrible writing skills. This has been a problem from time immemorial. Students cannot write and spell, if it's 2023 in South Africa or 250 BCE in Greece, they will always write badly.
But how did students get to an advanced stage in their academic career and they can still not write? I am feeling dumber by the minute as I read their papers, and I do not write this to insult them, but to showcase their absolute disregard for their own education. I have found so many spelling mistakes, people who cannot write the author of a source correctly, and blatant sentence constructions that does not make sense in any shape or form. I mean, spell checkers are for free, are we even living in 2023?
It is frustrating because as a new lecturer, you can begin to question your own work. Did I lecture well enough? Is it my fault?
But in the rare glimpses of rationality (or drunkenness) you come to realize that they somehow climbed the ranks, somehow they fooled the markers of tests and essays of other modules. And then you begin to understand the condescending reactions when you bring this problem to light. Then you understand the problem of ChatGPT in a different light, then you begin to see what the university is at heart: a money-making machine.
We all knew this from the start. The amount of students that go through the system is shocking to say the least.
Some of my colleagues' classes are 700-2000 big. I have marked tests from student groups 1200 strong. Your eyes get numb. I was an early postgraduate student. I did not know anything. Yet I marked. Is this education? Where papers are marked by those who know nothing yet? But this is how we learn, this is how we gain experience. But at what cost?
The students I am currently marking cannot write to save their lives. Are they products of the broken system? Am I that loose nut that troubles the well-oiled system? I am at a moral standstill in which the system will probably end up killing me.
Oh well.
Sorry for the depressing tone. I hope you enjoyed it if you read it. It felt good writing it. Maybe this was basically a therapy session for myself after the many papers that drained my creativity.
The musings are my own. The photographs are also my own. Keep well. Stay safe.
Man please stop 😂. I'm gonna start sending these to people to showcase my frustration. It's my 3d year with my module. Still under 25 😂. Busy with my fourth degree and counting. Goal is a job in academics... But is it worth it??
Just today I pulled out a bunch of assignments that needs grading. The first one didn't go so well but I was still positive. I ended up marking 5 just to realise not one of these students scored above 50. I went back to the assignment description, the videos I uploaded, my class notes I hand wrote and handed to them, the slides, the reading material for that unit, I even gave them an assignment template. It's all there, everything they need for a structured assignment. Did I still fail my students? I wonder a lot if I'm doing enough.
But then I remember 40% of the class not attending the unit during the blockweek. I check blackboard to see only 13 of my 33 students went over the readings and notes. I didn't fail as a lecturer, my students failed to learn and play their part. On top of that we have bad grammer (don't get me wrong I'm no pro, but I use Grammarly, google and my partner to check everything 😂). The basics of writing is nowhere to be found. Page numbers? Headings? References?! Even basics like useing a font that's easy to read in a size bigger than 8 😥, it's not there. I wonder how? How do these students end up in fort of us?
What is the future of academics in SA if this is what we have? How do we guide them to becoming more?
Yeah I do not know. I have all of these frustrations as well. Even paragraphs! I had one student write basically 3500 words in two or three paragraphs. As a reader I was completely lost.
Luckily you only have 30. I have 64 essays of philosophy of about 3500 words each. And they are not making sense. If they actually did the work I gave them, the reading would have been okay but:
NO ONE (okay maybe 30%) DISCUSSED THE TOPICS I GAVE THEM.
I mean in what world do you completely ignore the topics of your assignment and write about whatever you want? How did we end up in a situation where these adults (they are 21 and older) cannot even do basic things like essay writing?
🤣 the topics being ignored kills me. I have students writing about land use when the topic is on regional differences. These two are miles apart 😂. I don't even know if it's funny or sad.
I do know that SA needs a shift in education, specifically focused on universities. We keep lowering acceptance requirements and pass rates. By keeping to this we are gonna end up with a generation waiving around degrees and not knowing anything. Accountability, work ethics, effort and constant improvement is so important when going out into the world. Just hoping somewhere students realise the degree means nothing if the boss ain't pleased with your work.
I am finding this out the hard way. The university is about making money. To not give too much away, but if a student fails the university does not get their money from the state. I am sure you are aware of the numbers. I think a PhD in 3 years is worth almost 400k, master's almost 120k, articles 120k, and undergrad students in 3 years about 20-30k if I remember correctly. So the waiving of degrees without much knowledge is a real thing haha. But I am sure you know about this. No one is hiding these numbers.
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BTW, there's rant and talk community where you can freely rant away about topics like this. This is such an eye-opening to the state of education over there. Though personally I left it quite sometime ago, I take great interest in academia and well, career on it too. The problem that you described is also common where I am from. Some students would definitely pay somebody to fix it for them 🤣 and I made good money from it too because I guess, for some, it's really all about what paper they get to enhance their career and not the education itself.
Do you guys teach essay writing during high school?
Maybe I should "sell" my services under a different and anonymous name and make some extra money on the side haha. Nah, just kidding.
The Highschool system in South Africa is another story because it is standardized across the country. They are supposed to teach them writing skills, and all of the people down the line accept that their writing skills are there, but as clearly is the case, even on third year level in university, some people cannot write to save their lives.
Oh yes, I will check out the community! Maybe I should unload the frustration there about their writing skills now that I marked all of the essays.
hahaha that should do it, you know. It's a common practice where I am from and actually have heard the same from other developing countries hehe. I really think you should check that community and it's a good rant!
I am so sorry about the long delay! The very system we are talking about and the one I am ranting on about is keeping me so busy. Ugh, thanks in any case! I did dump some frustration into that community after all! Thanks again.
Thanks!
Pleasure is all mine!