Chris Whelan: Universities NZ CEO on the rising proportion of A-grades given at universities

The tertiary sector's not losing sleep over grade inflation at universities. 

A New Zealand Initiative report's found the proportion of A-grades has increased from 22% to 35% since 2006, but academic improvement can't explain it. 

Universities NZ CEO Chris Whelan told Mike Hosking it's not clear what's causing the change, but the report only considers four factors. 

He says none include the changes in how teaching is done, the use of online technologies, and the increasing number of postgraduate students. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's going on at the universities. They've got what's called
grade inflation. A. Grades have gone from twenty two percent
of results to thirty five percent. This is between now
in two thousand and six, so it's over a sustained
period of time. The New Zealand Initiative done this report.
It suggests this is as a result of what they
call grade corruption. Chris Williams, the Chief Executive of Course
of Universities New Zealand And, is back with us. Chris,

(00:22):
good morning to you.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Is grade inflation a recognized thing?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Look, it is, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Over the last twenty years that are covered by this study,
every university in the English speaking world has had the
same pressures to basically lift the standard of teaching, to
lift graduate outcomes, and they've invested in that. There's a

(00:47):
lot more support put around students now. Teachers are taught
how to be good teachers. There are systems that sit
around teachers and students to basically get more support to them,
even things like technology like distance learning. Since COVID, every
university now uses a distance learning in a much more
structured way to track the progress of students to help

(01:11):
students through small modules of learning and different forms of
assessment as well. So a lot has changed over that period.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
So you disagree with the report, you're saying that we've
bulked up the system and because of that, people do better.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I can't definitively say what it is, but I know
that the report only considers four factors, none of which
are things like changes in how teaching is done or
all the systems put around students, or even things like
the use of online technologies and increasing numbers of postgraduate students.
All those factors are missed in the report, which I

(01:47):
think is unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
What about the sharp increase in a grades in the
COVID period, because there's twenty six to twenty two, I mean,
that's a twenty year period, So I don't know that
I'm that alarmed by it. But there was a burst
in COVID, wasn't there?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Look, there was, and it was a unique situation. Eight universities.
Each of them did slightly different things. Some universities just
simply said, because there's two months where students aren't able
to attend lectures, we're going to give everyone a one
grade point bump. And other universities said things like mark
more leniently. So the idea was to basically make sure

(02:20):
that no students were disadvantaged. But it was only at
the end of the year you could really look back
and go, did we overcorrect or did we get it
about right?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
What about the funding incentives the report talks about, So
in other words, there are certain courses that you know
there's a bit of money flowing, so therefore where you
need some people to pass.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Look, absolutely, there are incentives, but the incentives are actually
a feature of the system, not a bug. So the
whole idea is that universities are funded to retain students.
If you get accepted into university, you are at a
standard where you should be able to pass. And quite rightly,
there's an expectation that universities are passing students. Yea.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Elizabeth Rater said the small that it's a cultural shift
and you just can't afford to have people fail anymore,
because I'll cry, is there any truth in that?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think that's probably an unfair characterization. The key thing
for universities is it's the reputation of their qualifications and
their graduates that are the key to a university being successful.
If employers lose confidence that a qualification that a graduate
can do what it says on the tin. If there's
a loss of confidence in that, then universities are in trouble.

(03:29):
So universities spend a lot of time and effort making
sure that they are producing good quality graduates and those
graduates get good jobs.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Good stuff. Chris, appreciate it very much, Chris Wheeland, who's
from the university's New Zealand. For more from the Mic
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