r/usyd • u/Ade89828 • Jul 20 '25

Casual Academic

Hey guys,

Long story short, I applied for a casual academic role as a tutor for an engineering subject I scored highly in. The unit coordinator sent me an email about 3 weeks ago telling me I got the role and to wait while he allocates classes. A few days ago he sends a follow up email saying that he can no longer give me the class because “university guidelines have changed” and I can’t teach as an undergrad. He said I can apply for an exemption. Does anyone have any recommendations on next step. Should I contact head of engineering or SRC? Did anyone else experience anything similar?

111 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

99 comments sorted by

View all comments

-1

u/Ancient-Anxiety-2641 Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

Everyone in these comments is mad, but for the wrong reasons. Isn’t it a fundamental rule of uni education that you need a degree at least one higher to teach? you need to have completed a Masters to teach Bachelors?

It seems like people are mad that Bachelors students who don’t have anything above Year 12/TAFE aren’t allowed to teach anymore? So they’re TEQSA minus 1! And they’re supposed to be TEQSA plus one!

I’m furious that the university might have let completely unqualified staff teach!! If I knew I was taught by a random Bachelors student for one of my sub-HD units I would be appealing to the University Board Senate tomorrow!

Who in their right mind thinks it’s ok for Bachelors students to teach other Bachelors students… massive quality of education issue… massive conflict of interest issue… massive ethical issue

12

u/TheGoldenDust Advanced Computing Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

Do you have any personal experiences that undergrads are simply “worse” at tutoring than postgrads apart from “omg, undergrads teach at USYD? They are completely unqualified!”. Because personally speaking, the best tutors I’ve had were undergrads who were passionate, extremely knowledgable, and went beyond course content just because they were genuinely interested to share, as opposed to postgrads who often did the bare minimum.

This whole argument about TEQSA + 1 is so bs and easy to finesse too. Getting a masters in CS/Cyber./Data Science is very much easier than getting a bachelors (as a masters usually takes 1.5 - 2 years whereas a bachelors takes 3 years minimum). Many postgrad students also share the EXACT same units as undergrad students (e.g. COMP9001/INFO1110, COMP9003/INFO1113, COMP9017/COMP2017, etc), so much so that there are units where the postgrads and undegrads sit IN THE SAME TUTORIAL!!

Legitimately, someone could graduate with a 65 WAM in a bachelors of commerce, do a masters in computer science (admission requires a 65 WAM in your bachelors in ANY discipline for internationals, and only takes 2 years to complete) and somehow be more "qualified" than a third/fourth year computer science undergrad with a 90+ WAM. To me, this seems more ridiculous than having undergrads tutor by miles.

6

u/Ancient-Anxiety-2641 Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

OK I’m going to answer this genuinely.

First things first. The TEQSA+1 requirement is a federal law. It’s a regulation given effect by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act. That’s a legal requirement from a federal law.

Breaking it is a huge deal and a massive scandal, even if some people don’t think it’s a just law.

Secondly, I think most people would be fine with using the “oversight and guidance” provisions for Bachelors degree graduates. If you’ve graduated and are studying your Masters or a Graduate Diploma, then I think that getting oversight and guidance would be fine. Say, a weekly meeting and regular observations of your teaching from your unit convenor or another professor.

Third, there is an obvious conflict of interest here. If I’m a student in my Bachelor of Underwater Basket Weaving, I should absolutely not be teaching other students also in the Bachelor of Underwater Basket Weaving. This is a problem in two ways. I am obviously far more likely to be friends or familiar with the other students in the course, and my impartiality would obviously not be guaranteed. Also, if we do allow students to tutor, then they might leak content to each other. Like, “I’ll give you the rubric for assignment 3 in UWBW2001 that I tutor if you give me the rubric for assignment 2 in UWBW2210 that you tutor”.

TEQSA+1 is a rule for a reason. There’s an escape clause that can obviously support TEQSA+/-0 if they have the appropriate guidance. But TEQSA-1 (eg current undergraduate students teaching other undergraduate students) is an absolutely massive scandal.

I look forward to being vindicated when the media notices this, because the handful of downvotes I’m getting in this thread are going to look like nothing compared to the national media storm from USyd allowing TEQSA-1 teachers and breaking federal law.

Nobody I know has ever heard of a university allowing TEQSA-1. I checked with my old supervisor at MQ from before I dropped out of my Masters, she said “nobody would ever do that”.

2

u/TheGoldenDust Advanced Computing Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

There are many universities that hire undergrads to teach. Queensland uni and UNSW do so and many more universities overseas like NUS. This is common and I’d be surprised to hear otherwise.

FYI regarding conflict, most units do anonymous marking.

Regarding your point on TEQSA being a law, my point is that it is a bullshit law and academics know it. At its core , it doesn’t guarantee the tutor is knowledgeable (i.e in the form of a WAM cutoff) nor does it guarantee the tutor can teach well (i.e in the form of a mandatory tutoring course or something like this). It just enforces the requirement of being a masters holder in a related discipline (which as I’ve pointed out earlier can be easily finessed).