The University of Sydney has issued a follow-up email to current Bachelor of Advanced Studies students across all faculties this morning regarding a resolution to the administrative issues with these degree certificates flagged to staff, students, and the Australian Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) last Friday.
In her update, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Joanne Wright stated that “the University has agreed on an approach” to address these issues. This means the University will “now be making some administrative changes to the Bachelor of Advanced Studies to ensure graduates are awarded degree certificates that clearly show they’ve fulfilled the requirements of two degrees.”
Two new certificate pathways were outlined in the email for those who complete a four-year Bachelor of Advanced Studies combined degree in any faculty. At this stage, they will receive “either two Level 7 Bachelor degrees or a Level 7 Bachelor degree and a Level 8 (Honours) degree, for those who have fulfilled the requirements of honours.”
These solutions are intended to directly address the two key issues identified last week, being the misrepresentation of Bachelor of Advanced Studies qualifications, as well as the conflation of Level 7 undergraduate and Level 8 honours achievements, on degree certificates.
Wright assured students, “we’ll be working through this administrative process as quickly as possible and will keep affected students updated.” She also noted that “Bachelor of Advanced Studies students do not need to do anything at this time” because their unit of study selections “remain unaffected”, and that students enrolled in other degrees “are not affected in any way.”
This information comes two days after the University’s Academic Board called an out-of-session meeting to discuss the key risks impacting different cohorts and to settle on a satisfactory resolution.
Honi Soit has been made aware that Wright opened Monday’s meeting with an apology, stating “I’m sorry this has happened” so close to Welcome Week and the first week of the academic year.
Wright also hinted at the possibility of creating a “new exit award” for undergraduate students attempting to drop their Bachelor of Advanced Studies at the end of their three core years of study.
The Academic Board has nonetheless resolved to reissue all past and current degree certificates, and has proposed an internal investigation “to understand how this happened” and to “make sure it does not happen again.”
However, there is one small cohort of five-year degrees that Academic Board staff “have not quite worked through yet.” Current and enrolled students in a Bachelor of Music/Bachelor of Secondary Education with a Bachelor of Advanced Studies must be treated on a “case-management basis” to best navigate the intricacies of combining these three degrees. The Academic Board’s main concern here is ensuring that all of these students can complete an appended Honours degree.
Honi was also informed that during questions from staff and student-appointed representatives at Monday’s meeting, Wright revealed these solutions have been neither conceptualised nor proposed in consultation with students. While this may change given the Academic Board’s recent approval of two remediation options, those affected remain absent from the design of this policy change.
In response to the Academic Board’s handling of the issue, and the nature of the issue itself, SRC President Harrison Brennan told Honi that “Whilst this may not have any significant impact on the studies of current students or graduates, it is nonetheless a massive blunder from university management. The issue dates back to 2016 with the creation of the Bachelor of Advanced Studies degree, a rushed proposal that has clearly backfired for the university and is having repercussions for its students.”
More information about the proposed changes is available on the University of Sydney’s website. Honi will continue to cover additional information as it arrives.
