I have just read Stuart Middleton's blog on EdtalkNZ and thank goodness someone is saying what I have been for yonks i.e. we have been concentrating for years on course completion statistics as relates to individual papers (I will call them this old fashioned term for sake of clarity) but we have no idea about programme /qualification completion rates particularly completion of longer more complex qualifications such as degrees. This gives us a completely erroneous picture of what is going on.
For instance a student ‘A’ could do a couple of semesters on a degree, pass all papers with C s, and leave without a qualification because they either
don't like it
or are bored with the course or teaching,
or don't think it is relevant or useful,
or get distracted by other things in life
or don't think they can manage to pass the higher level papers
or maybe think the standards are too low
etc.
and even may be completely put off education as a result.
This outcome is seen as a 100% success by our present measurements. despite the waste of time money to student and the taxpayer.
Student ‘B’ could complete the whole degree, having had to re-sit a few papers during the process particularly at the beginning, (say 5 out of the total 24) , become totally engaged with the teaching and learning , get straight A's in their final year, get the degree qualification in about 3 1/2 years and then get a good job.
By our present statistical measurement this student would be contributing to the total failure rate on that qualification i.e. less than 75% success rate.
