Dear Colleagues,
My idea would be to suggest that any research in this area needs to take
into account the General and Specific Duties' requirements of the Race
Relations Amendment Act (RRAA) 2000. The seemingly detrimental experiences
that these students have been suffering and continue to suffer are exactly
at the basis of why the RRAA has made its stipulations and why Macpherson
made the recommendations on institutional ethos, relative to processes and
procedures, in his report at the end of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry,
notwithstanding Bett,Modood, UUK's CUCO Guidelines for HEIs, et al.
In order to find the right answers, we need to always ask the right
questions and the right questions, in this case will have to be those that
have the RRAA and other equality requirements at their core, as far as HE
institutional employment and service delivery practices are concerned.
Any comments are most welcome.
Regards
Mannie
Emmanuell (Mannie) Kusemamuriwo (Policy Adviser: Ethnicity and Cultural
Diversity)
Equality Challenge Unit
3rd Floor, Tavistock Place,
London WC1H 9RA
Tel 020 7520 7060
Fax 020 7520 7069
Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 24 January 2002 11:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Academic Performance of International Students
Dear all
Colleagues here at the University of Brighton (Iraj Tavakoli and Gillian
Shapiro) have been undertaking research into academic performance of
international students at the Brighton Business School, and have found that
overall they performed less well than their British counterparts in the
first year of the BA Business Studies Course. The research appears to have
confirmed beliefs that this situation has occured because of significant
differences between the students' prior experiences and those here, of
teaching and learning methods and country culture, with language differences
and distance away from the family also being relevant.
The Business School has this year implemented some suggestions for improving
the situation (including a buddy system, extra personal tutor time and
ensuring attendance in extra-curricular English language classes where
appropriate), and developments are currently being monitored.
Iraj and Gillian are planning to carry out further research in this area and
have asked me to post this message to ask colleagues for information
regarding similar studies that may have been carried out elsewhere and
details of any relevant articles.
Any ideas or information gratefully received!
Thanks
Ann Allcock
Equal Opportunities Coordinator
University of Brighton
My normal working days are Mondays and Thursdays. If you have an urgent
enquiry at another time, please contact Jackie Rymell in the Personnel
Department..
|