Monday, 23 October 2006
To: Chief Executive HEFCW
Cc: Elin Jones AM
Mark Williams MP
RE: FORMAL COMPLAINT – ADDENDUM III
So Called Quality Assurance and Academic Fraud
Dear Professor Gummet.
Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 HEFCW is charged with setting up a subsidiary known as the Quality Assurance Agency (which under the circumstances is a misnomer if ever there was one) to ensure standards in higher education. I note your website boasts the following.
‘Institutional Review
A new quality assurance framework for Wales was introduced in 2003/04. This involved reviews by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) of every higher education institution (HEI) in Wales. The process is known as ‘institutional review’.
Institutional review was developed by the QAA in line with advice from the HEFCW Quality Working Group, which included representatives from across the higher education sector, the further education sector, the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Union of Students Wales’
I wish to complain that you have not only obstructed a member of the public from finding out about your own complaints procedures but the QAA does not have any at all and therefore no public scrutiny of its work. We live in a democracy whereby everyone is accountable and therefore this is my only means of complaint to which you are constitutionally required to respond.
If as Mr Hall has decreed on behalf of HEFCW that my complaint is an academic matter then I must complain of academic fraud as well as monetary fraud and the failure of HEFCW to prevent and respond to both. Furthermore HEFCW has prevented the reporting of such conduct and deliberately obstructed the resolution of my complaint since 2004.
There was an assessment while I was a student at UoW Lampeter and at the same time complaining about the wholly unacceptable conduct of Zed Zorichak from both an academic and professional viewpoint. The whole thing was stage managed to make sure that I was the last person to bring this to the attention of the assessors.
I have also read some of your reports which and found a comment that the University should consider making notices concerning bullying and victimisation more prominent. I also note that the Vice Chancellor can be approached in this respect; my experience is that he would be the first to put the boot in and then threaten legal action if you complain!
With regard to the academic fraud you have a situation whereby staff misconduct is being hidden behind academic independence and autonomy. The ‘Plagiarism Game’ that is being played at Lampeter with former head of school Prof David Austin claiming ‘is of the highest standards in the university sector’. The students complaints scheme has been perverted with documents ‘lost and evidence fabricated.
Until now they have got away with telling whatever lies were necessary because the last thing that HEFCW is going to do is to reveal this sort of wrong doing. Staff and office bearers are protecting Zed Zorichak for fear of his conduct being made public. The whole assessment process is a meaningless waste of time and money, but perhaps that is an issue for the Auditor General.
The revelation of what is going on at Lampeter is going to lead to a public loss of confidence and trust not only in HEFCW but the entire Federal University, that is turn is going to lead to a reduction in the number of students from England and a home made funding crises.
It also raise the question is HEFCW and the QAA a regulation fraud?
