The academic world has become increasingly competitive by embracing global diversity. As opposed to the earlier days when learners were bound by national curriculums to study in one country, the movement of students from one country to another in search of specialized and high-quality education has significantly increased in the 20th century. For instance, according to data from the Commonwealth Provider Registration and International Student management system (PRISMS), Australia receives between 700, 000 and 800,00 international students every year, accounting for between 8% to 11% of the total students’ enrollment across the country (Charles Darwin University, 2020). Hence, to avoid the proliferation of existing education standards and sustain high-quality learning and training, Charles Darwin University developed the Admissions policy to provide framework and guidelines for admission for courses of the University.
The Charles Darwin University admission policy is a legal document, developed by Charles Darwin University in line with Charles Darwin University Act 2003 part 3, section 15. The policy is used to identify eligible applicants who are likely to succeed in Charles Darwin University courses for admission into the institution. The policy is a broad framework that offers guiding principles on the determination of applicants for admission as provided for by the Australian Qualifications Framework Implementation Handbook and other principles that govern and regulate Education in Australian Universities (Charles Darwin University, 2020). The Charles Darwin University admissions policy applies to both domestic and international applicants seeking entry into any of the courses offered by the institution. The policy also cuts across all levels of certification, covering both award and non-award courses at the university. For instance, the policy determines selection for admission for higher education programs, research work, Vocational Education and Training (VET) as well as non-award programs at Charles Darwin University.
The implementation of the Charles Darwin University admissions policy has seen potential applicants miss out on the chance to secure admission into the university due to various reasons. Hence, this paper will discuss the implementation of the admissions policy as a guiding tool for selective admission into Charles Darwin University using the 8-Step Bardach method to expound on the effectiveness of the policy in the sustenance of high-quality education at the University.
Bardach’s 8-Step process
A professor of Public Policy, Eugene Bardach developed a competent and exhaustive 8-step approach to policy analysis which was eventually named after him, the Bardach’s 8 step process. Bardach’s 8-step process is a stepwise and systematic method of analyzing public policies to establish their efficacy and shortcomings as well as developing recommendations based on the analysis (Bardach, 2019). The preceding section of this paper will, therefore, summarily discuss each step of Bardach’s process with respect to Charles Darwin University’s admission policy. The initial four stages will delve onto the structure of the policy while the last four steps will mainly be an evaluation.
Defining the Problem
The Charles Darwin University admissions policy has limited the number of successful applicants to only a few who meet all the requirements as stipulated in the policy. One major emphasis in the policy is the selection of eligible applicants who can successfully pursue the rigorous programs at the university. The university offers a wide range of unique services that serve as major attractions to potential students. For instance, online learning, which has been consistently supported as the most convenient mode of learning is largely embraced by the University. Charles Darwin University has more than 22000 students enrolled and studying online. The university also offers unique fields of study such as Asian Studies and desert science which are only found at Charles Darwin University. Nevertheless, despite one’s love for the programs and passion to pursue such courses, admission is only upon successfully meeting all the requirements in the policy.
According to the admission policy, academic performance is not the only criterion for admission into Charles Darwin University. The policy empowers the university to deny admission to academically bright students who may fail to meet the minimum provisions under the Discretion to refuse admission section. For instance, applicants without valid documents to live in Australia, as well as those with questionable personal attributes such as dishonesty and deceitfulness cannot be admitted into Charles Darwin University. The admissions policy has helped Charles Darwin University churn out well-behaved, law-abiding, and disciplined graduates by systematically getting rid of those who fail to meet the threshold for studying in the university at the point of admission.
Admission into Charles Darwin University on academic merit as stipulated in the admissions policy is strict as per the various Australian Education Standards. For example, International students can only be considered for admission if they have proof of having successfully completed secondary or tertiary qualifications that match Australian qualifications alongside a minimum English Language Proficiency certificate. As for alternative entry pathways, the policy spells out various academic qualifications that must be met before one is considered for admission. Hence, Charles Darwin University is not a reserve for VET graduates, international students, or local graduates but rather a diverse society that offers unique education, research, and training as per individual qualifications.
Finally, proficiency in the English language is a compulsory requirement for international students who seek admission at Charles Darwin University. Many international students from non-English speaking countries have been locked out of Charles Darwin university due to the above requirement. For instance, Charles Darwin University is among the few institutions of higher learning in Australia that offer programs in fields such as Asian studies. However, the insistence on proficiency in the English language has discouraged most students from the middle east who cannot speak English and hence fail the language’s proficiency test (Ong, 2018).
Assembling evidence
Charles Darwin University was formed because of the merger between Northern Territory University with Menzies School of Health Research and Centralian College. Based on the nature of its formation, the university was expected to absorb many students both from within Australia and foreign countries. Charles Darwin University has lived to its expectations, admitting over 20,000 students from more than 55 countries in its campus and regional centers. The Charles Darwin university admissions policy was developed to help the institution control the number of freshmen while maintaining high levels of discipline and academic performance and hence the emphasis on eligibility based on the ability to succeed in the institution’s courses.
According to Fegan (2009), most universities in Austria, both private and public, largely depend on revenue from international students to supplement government funding. He further argued that most universities in Australia would either downsize or even collapse if all international students left the institutions. However, despite the huge revenues brought in by international students, there is a need to ensure that admissions are not only tied to the generation of revenue but also on the quality of education. The Charles Darwin admissions policy insists on the need for all international students’ qualifications to meet the Australian standards to ensure eligibility based on academic ability. The emphasis on proficiency in English is also to help such students to quickly integrate into Australian society.
Despite a large number of tertiary institutions and vocational education training centers in Australia, the market demand for graduates from such institutions remains low across the country. (Fegan et al, 2009) As a result, there is a growing increase in demand for university education in Australia. For instance, in 2007, following the Rudd government’s decisions, universities in Australia opened floodgates to Australian students in what was referred to as attempts to remove the existing caps on the number of graduate and undergraduate students. Hence, the provisions in the Charles Darwin’s admission policy are meant to offer guidelines on eligibility, thereby averting the fears of allowing students with poor academic results into Australian universities that arose in 2007 (Financial Review.).
Constructing the Alternatives
Different institutions of learning higher learning have successfully managed to maintain high levels of student discipline and high-quality education through alternative approaches. For instance, the university is not only about academic excellence but also a place where students mature mentally, physically, and emotionally through social networks they create amongst themselves. While the admissions policy seems to work for Charles Darwin University, some alternatives can be used to bring about the same effect.
The initial alternative would be to equip all campuses of Charles Darwin University with resources enough to cater to the diverse needs of students. Resources in this case mean increasing the number of tutors, increasing the available structure, and increasing the number of online learning platforms based on the student’s population. According to Qayyum et al (2018), the level of academic performance among students also depends on the overall time such students interact with their tutors and instructors. Hence having sufficient resources in place will help prevent the proliferation of Charles Darwin University’s education standards.
Revenue is a key component in the management of universities. In Australia, much of the university revenue comes from international students. Insistence on proficiency in English is likely to lock out potential students. On the contrary, Charles Darwin University should consider bringing on board, tutors, and instructors from other languages of the world. Similarly, the university can effectively employ transcribers and translators to help non-English students learn in their preferred languages.
Selecting the criteria
Increasing resources to cater for the huge number of students would imply that efforts and focus are shifted from stringent admission regulations to providing the best learning environment for the students. Similarly, there will be less pressure on churning out academic giants and instead, the utmost goal will be training fully developed individuals who can appreciate cultural diversity and positively contribute towards the development of the society. With strict enforcement of class attendance and performance-based evaluation, students with questionable character will find themselves out of place, defer their studies, and never to come back. The entire approach is to allow as many potential students to get admitted and slowly let the rigorous academic programs rig the legible ones out.
Integrating transcribers, translators, and native language tutors and instructors into the various academic programs at Charles Darwin University are bound to open doors for many international students. Unknown to Charles Darwin University, the performance of some international students is affected by the need to learn a second language while simultaneously attending to respective course work. Such students score badly on social interaction as they cannot express themselves. The proposed alternatives are meant to increase their confidence, allow them to express freely, and hence learn in a language they best understand.
Projecting the outcomes
Going by the proposed alternatives, Charles Darwin University is likely to experience between 20-25% increase in international students’ admissions and over 25% increase in local students’ populations (Financial Review). The enrollment in the university’s online learning programs is likely to go up by 35% owing to the fact that most international students are likely to go for such programs where they are guaranteed to learn in their native or first languages. Besides the increase in student population, Charles Darwin University stands to get a significant increase in overall revenue collected in the form of tuition and university services fees. Similarly, with less stringent admission policies alongside high-quality education, the corporate image of the university is bound to improve to a point where Charles Darwin University will be the most preferred institution of higher learning in Australia.
Confronting Trade-offs
While the alternatives can be easily implemented, one possible rebuttal would be that operating on a lenient admissions policy would erode Charles Darwin university’s culture and standards by due to less stringent scrutiny of eligible applicants. To begin with, the various qualifications for one to enroll for an academic program are not set by Charles Darwin university but instead by the Australians Qualifications Framework. Hence, Charles Darwin will not seek to bypass such standards as previously established by the Australians Qualifications Framework but will instead adhere to such provisions even as it implements less stringent admission regulations. In this case, the credibility of all programs offered at Charles Darwin University will be maintained. As for the case of international students, the laws regarding foreigners’ access and stay in Australia will still hold and will subsequently serve as the base consideration before other factors are considered.
Making the decision
The Charles Darwin University admissions policy seeks to ensure that amongst the eligible applicants, only those who are likely to succeed at the institution are admitted. The policy also seeks to ensure that all the minimum academic qualifications or their equivalent are attained before consideration for admission. As for the case of international students, proficiency in the English language, and possession of all legal documents to stay in Australia are among the key requirements. More importantly, the university reserves the authority to deny admission whenever there is sufficient proof that any of the provisions in the policy have been infringed. Overall, the policy is meant to significantly cut down on the number of both successful local and international applicants.
On the other hand, opening the university to admit more students and provide resources required by each student is bound to increase both the student’s population as well as revenue for the university. Allowing international students to learn in their first language will further increase their population at Charles Darwin university while boosting their performance. There is a guarantee that neither the academic standards of Charles Darwin University nor the overall discipline of the students will be affected. The move will also significantly improve the corporate brand for the university, further marketing as the most preferred university in the country.
Telling the story
Despite is the current huge students’ population, Charles Darwin university still has the darwinto admit more students without straining the available facilities and resources. As one of the biggest public universities in the country, the university has continuously channeled out great scholars who are much sought after in the job market. Nevertheless, the current admissions policy as implements threatens to make the university a reserve of a few Australians and English-speaking foreigners. This was not the initial objective of the admissions policy as initially drafted and should not be left to replace the core objectives of the institution.
Over 10 years since its approval, the Charles Darwin university admission policy resulted in one key outcome, locking out eligible applicants for failure to meet the strict guidelines as laid down in the policy. The net effect is that the university continues to miss out on its revenue targets due to a small number of international students at the university. Using Bardach’s eight-step process, it has been demonstrated that there is a need to rethink and revise some sections of the policy to allow the university to absorb more students and subsequently serve its purposes in society. It has also been shown that the alternative approaches to admission do not have the perceived effects on the education standards at the institutions but in fact likely to further decorate the image of the university.