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Q: Should western universities lose accreditation when caught cooking the grades of Chinese students?
It's more common than you think in the west. Many universities in America only accept Chinese students because their entry-essays have been cooked by unscrupulous institutions who are greedy for Chinese tuition. Chinese students normally pay the entire tuition, for four years, in advance. This is very lucrative for many schools, especially those in dire financial straits.
Very few of the admitted students even have the necessary English level (both written and spoken) to even get close to passing the TOEFL. They got along by google translating, couldn't understand basic English sentences, and instead just nodded seriously anytime any of their teachers spoke.
Additionally, I witnessed the headmaster of one particular college "visiting" Chinese girls in their homes, off-campus, at night (believe it or not, I was tutoring a girl late at night - we were not fornicating!). Some of these girls suddenly became excited about their future prospects after such visits, stating they were going to be helped to get an MBA, etc.
My wife's English is much better than theirs, and she never had a foreign teacher in her life. Her English was taught by herself, and by Chinese English teachers. Yet, she's never had the opportunity to study abroad - although she will once we get home, 'cause I'm sending her to college in the U.S.
Anyway, I'm a little bitter to see my country's educational system becoming so corrupted. It's almost like China corrupts everything it touches, huh? Now, I'm not saying all Chinese do this, but from my limited experience with more than a few dozen, only 3 had good enough English to pass the TOEFL... and that's only their written English. The rest had no business in American schools.
To make matters worse, I frequently encountered students who couldn't understand extremely -- and I mean extremely -- basic English, and asked me to explain what it meant in Chinese. The majority of my job consisted in giving explanations for English assignments in Chinese.
So, should these universities lose their accreditation when such things are discovered?
Source: I tutored these people back home, and know dozens of Chinese across America (they are the ones who helped me get very interested in China). Some of them had completely unintelligible English, and they just google-translated their essays and assignments right in front of me! For some "unknown" reason, these students were acing everything.
11 years 3 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
They should lose accreditation for cooking ANYONES grades.
Hugh.G.Rection:
There have been quite a few cases in the UK, new small colleges set up and accredited, and they are almost 100% visa scams, students apply, (pay a lot of money) get a student visa, often they aren't even required to go to the college, then vanish into the illegal immigrant working pool.
The difference is in the UK the vast majority are tailored towards immigrants from the Indian sub-continent.
In the UK if any such evidence is found the first action is to report it to the examination board. The examination board is usually (not always) separate from the University and take such accusations VERY seriously, if the examination board doesn't allow a University to set it's exams the University's accreditation is pretty pointless.
However, like GR said, yes, ALL colleges, unis etc should lose accreditation for supporting fraud.
There was a school in Western Australia, Perth Institute of Western Australia (PIWA), that did exactly that. Their case highlights the problems with dealing with such issues.
They were accredited in Australia to issue Advanced Diplomas (Associate Degrees) in Hospitality. This virtually guaranteed the students work visas to travel to Australia and work in the hotels that this schools managed through it's Hotel Management Company, Argyle Hotels Group.
The owners of both the school and the hotel group were Kevin Zhang (China) and Kevin Barker (Australia). Their recruiter in China was Gordon Leith, of the Australian Institute of Tourism and Hospitality (AITH), a former Melbourne flower salesman.
When the Western Australian (WA) Government found out, they found it very difficult to prove their case against the Australian school. The regulating bodies in China refused to provide any information about the school's operations in China (state secrets).
Instead, the WA government forced the school into bankruptcy:
And set up an online complaint board:
This site was emailed to all the past students in China through a third party, as apparently the Australian government were "forbidden" by the Chinese government to contact the Chinese students.
The Minister referred the matter to the Australian Crimes Commission, and investigations are proceeding. It appears the WA government is serious about prosecuting them.
It is difficult, in Australia at least, to bring such schools to account, but under former PM Kevin Rudd, the Australian Government took steps to make it harder for these schools.
there is a training school in jinan that teaches students for 100,000 rmb how to pass the toefl, when the student finishes , he takes the identity of the other students with fake id cards and takes the test for them for 30000 rmb each time they sit for the test. these guys never go abroad , they make their money being professional test takers for others.
last year one of my old students was kicked out of new zeeland because he and 54 other students submitted fake ielts scores for admission to university there. one day a chinese graduate is going to do something really stupid in science or engineering that cost some lives and this is all going to blow up very badly.
Hulk:
This is a huge part of the problem. One part of the problem is that most colleges are aware of this, but continue to accept the students anyway.
I know of one European university (I could name it) that was censured by their government for the suspiciously high pass rate of Chinese students. As it was a state university and receiving state funds, they were put under review for a year until the relevant government department were satisfied that the required high standard was re-imposed. But for private universities, in know, are another story where probably the only requirement is student through-put.
Traveler:
This also happened to Australia's Monash University in 2003, and I believe some Australian staff went to jail. Since then, the Australian universities have either been better behaved or sneakier. As mentioned above, Australian authorities have cracked down on it, and more than 500 private schools have been closed down because of it.
Just an update. I visited a public university recently to get my wife enrolled. None of the Chinese students could understand basic spoken English, and they couldn't speak it either... but my wife could. Somehow, they were enrolled in said college and getting good grades.
Not sure what to think, really. I know for a fact that it's a good school, and one of the highest rated in the country, but I'm also worried that my wife wouldn't get a good education if they just keep passing her if she doesn't know the material.
Hi Hulk, I honestly think they should lose their accreditation. The same thing is happening in the UK. Chinese students English ability across all areas (speaking, reading, writing etc) just aren’t up to speed when they start a degree overseas. How they got through the entrance exam is beyond me. Compared to native speakers who have to achieve some semi-decent A level grades, which if anyone in the UK has taken these can agree, are tough exams the entrance requirements for overseas students are a joke. Universities aren’t just doing it when it comes to entrance, but for graduation too. I’ve seen dissertations written in a style Chinglish that would barely hold their own against the writing ability of a 14 year old native speaker and yet they achieve a pass mark at master’s level.
Without a doubt, the standard of marking is substantially lowered to get Chinese students their degrees so they don’t tell prospective students back home that it’s a ‘bad’ university to go to. They are the cash cows of many universities and sadly in the last decade or two, uni’s have become more concerned with profits at the expense of retaining the high standards of education they were once renowned for.
Not only should they lose accreditation, they should rub my testicles.
Yeah they should give them the biggest punishment which is to lose accreditation. 
