From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy

On 8/16/2026 9:50 AM, Julian wrote:

Lectures at BritainrCOs best universities now come with subtitles. Look around the room and yourCOll see rows of students who canrCOt follow the English, reading it off their phones instead, getting a line-by-line translation as the professor speaks. Every student in that hall has been certified as able to understand the material in English. On this
evidence, the certification is not worth a great deal. Students at
several universities have described the same scene to me, each in the
flat tone reserved for what no longer surprises them.

One student says he rarely sits through a lecture without noticing
several classmates following it in real-time AI translation, each of
them deemed to have proficient English language skills before they
arrived. The apps can just about keep up in a lecture, but not during
class discussions. Others describe seminars in which the conversation
falls to the handful of students who have the language skills to answer
in real time. Sometimes, the class cannot make itself understood to the tutor at all and, remarkably, the discussion switches to Mandarin,
leaving the only home student unable to take part in a seminar at their
own university. There is something almost comical in it, until you
remember he was paying for the privilege.

Students have pointed out another, still more alarming phenomenon. Classmates who struggle to hold a conversation in English often return
very high marks on their essays. Some students admitted to others, cheerfully enough, that they paid professional essay-writers to complete their coursework for them. Buying an essay is academic misconduct rather than a crime; selling one has been a criminal offence in England since
2022, though you would struggle to find a prosecution. What troubles me
is how ordinary it has become. Students speak of it as routine for those whose English falls short, something discussed openly rather than hidden.

None of this would have been necessary if the English language
requirements for university had meant anything at the point of
admission. An applicant who falls short, these days, is no longer turned away. Many top universities simply sell them a short pre-sessional
English course at a fee it, conveniently, sets itself, and passing this course replaces the language test. No external examiner reviews the
result. The Home Office allows providers teaching at degree level to
assess English by their own methods and simply record the judgement on
the visa paperwork, so nothing is checked at that stage either. Some language pathway centres advertise guaranteed progression. I find it
hard not to admire the economy of it. The university sets the standard, sells the remedy, marks the remedy and keeps the fee. I know of no other market where the seller is trusted with quite this much.

As it happens, the students who lose out most are the ones who meet the requirements. A degree means something only because it separates those
who earned it from those who did not. Alas, this distinction has begun
to fade. A student who has spent years learning to argue in a second language now leaves with the same degree as the classmate who paid for
his essays and follows lectures through translator apps. Group work
offers the plainest example: students describe presentations in which
the marks of the whole group are dragged down because their classmates
could not speak English to the level the task required. Their grade, in effect, rests on other peoplerCOs English.

The buyers, tellingly, have noticed the slip in standards before the sellers. China sends more students to Britain than any other country.
Among Chinese recruiters, the degree has earned a dismissive nickname: u#|tio, or rCywater masterrCOsrCO, a qualification seen as watered down and valued accordingly. The ease of admission, and what the students
describe once they are in, is part of what has made Chinese families and employers wary, and the enrolments in the latest admissions cycle have
begun to follow this trend. A 10 per cent slump in international
applicants has forced top institutions to accept lower-achieving
candidates. A reputation built over a century is being spent in a decade and, make no mistake, the cost will ultimately fall on the students.

A degree used to certify a claim about a person: that they can think critically and make themselves understood. A degree that certifies
nothing eventually becomes a degree worth nothing. It will still say rCyfirst classrCO. It no longer says first class at what.

Ryan Modarres

The widespread acceptance of monetary inflation resulting in an ongoing decline in the value of the currency seems to correlate with the
devaluing of ethical standards.

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