Complaint Review: University of Stirling

With university tuition fees on the rise, it appears that mainstream British publications do not have a habit of releasing statistics of PhD failure rates, nor is it a habit of the public to seek out such facts and figures. It was as far back as 2012 when The Guardian published an article stating that in some UK universities, the PhD fail rate is over 40%. These figures, however, remain inadequate as far constituting a case for disclosure for public interest. What we truly need are regularly updated (possibly, bi-annually updated) facts and figures, charting the PhD rates of pass and failure for each and every UK university, as well as a thoroughly calculated average for each update that clearly shows the national rates of pass and failure. Disclosure of PhD fail rates is a matter of great importance because — as many case studies may prove over and over again once the precise details are revealed — the fail rates are a reflection of intellectual discrimination. In a typical example, the external examiner would state in the viva something to this effect: “These ideas are just what you think. You should have followed the model of what was done before” — indicating that originality, creativity, and innovation are not permitted within the academy. Cases such as these can be found at this website:  

missendencentre.co.uk/johnwakeford.html

Here, we find elaborately detailed accounts provided by former PhD students whose full names have been withheld. The cases that stand out the most highlight the system’s allowance of examiners to do whatever they so wish with the candidate’s thesis, this despite the examiners’ arguable ignorance of the subject in which the candidate had spent several years developing a unique expertise. According to a former candidate who called himself Jamie, “The current system appears to allow the title to be changed by the examiners at the Viva with the candidate then left trying to corner the subject all over again. Up until now there have been no issues with my approach, and in fact positive, intelligent and responsive feedback from a variety of peer sources, with some challenges in the mix.” In fact, Jamie’s case is very typical, in that despite all the extreme challenges considered very normal over the course of doctoral training, such candidates emerged from those challenges successfully, at least in the eyes of their supervisors. It was only when they reached the viva stage that they ended up being denied a PhD, primarily because they happened to land upon examiners who had no recognition for radical dissent in intellectual thought. A very similar case was also put forward by a former candidate who called herself Joanna: “Toward the end, they [the examiners] began to drift onto topics I thought were outside their remit, such as how long it had taken me to write the thesis, and whether I should have been given the option of an 18 month rewrite, to which one examiner responded that the examiners had not offered this option as they felt that the whole thing would need a “total rewrite” to be acceptable. This statement was accepted without any further discussion or justification.”

While accessing personal accounts of PhD experiences, such as Jamie’s and Joanna’s, is only a matter of searching the Missenden Centre’s website, it requires sending Freedom of Information requests to universities to access their PhD pass/fail numbers. The City University of London revealed that in the academic year 2011/12, there were 112 PhD passes, and 29 fails, which means that the fail rate for that year alone is 25.89 %. The University of Stirling offered some quite surprising figures, for in 2014-15, there were no PhD awards, no ‘lesser degree’ awards (which would include the downgrading to an MPhil), and no fails. In 2013/14, Stirling revealed that there were no PhD awards, no lesser awards, but 3 fails. In 2012/13, Stirling awarded 4 PhDs, 2 lesser degrees, and 4 fails. So considering that downgrading to an MPhil still constitutes a fail, it appears — unless conditions indicate otherwise — that in the year 2012/13, there were up to 6 fails, while 4 PhDs were awarded.

According to the rules and regulations of PhD examinations in UK universities, it is clear that the universities had already placed themselves ‘in the clear’. When challenged, they would respond with a statement to this effect — that they, the universities, could not possibly be held accountable for the final outcomes of PhD examinations. This is because the examination outcomes had automatically been outsourced to examiners whom the current system has placed in legally untouchable positions of authority. Court fees have recently been hiked to the extent that there is a considerable financial disincentive to launching a case in the first place, let alone the cost of legal representation and the risk of having to pay the costs of the other side if one loses. One can also expect that the universities would use high quality and therefore expensive lawyers to defend any claim that the students might bring, especially bearing in mind the reputational damage the students might cause should they win. Thus, the legal system in combination with higher education is completely rigged.

Universities worldwide continue to rip people off, and ruin people's lives! When will it stop?!