The course External Accounting and Analysis is taken by 63 students at Malmö högskola, Malmö University. 59 of them are now forced to sit a re-exam in order to get their credits in.
During spring term the course External Accounting and Analysis headed off again at Malmö högskola – now in new format. It is held from the beginning of the spring term onwards as an individual course and covers 7,5 credits. Credits that seem to be extremely hard to get. Only four of the 63 students that are now participating in the course are eligible to take in the credits after the first examination. Unfortunate, according to the course coordinator, Ewa Sarlöv.
“It is very sad. At least one half of the class should be able to pass”, she says.
Many underlying factors
And that was actually the case – last term. At that time, 55 percent of the students received at least a sufficient grade after the first examination. The current situation seems miles away from that. What lies behind this sudden collapse? There could be many reasons.
“It depends on many factors. The course has been rearranged: it could be so that the tempo is too high or that there is a disbalance between the exam and the teaching”, she explains. But at the same time Ewa Sarlöv turns against criticism about what the restructuring of the course has meant for the teaching conditions.
“That is something everyone can figure out himself. But is up to every individual to make that assessment”, she says.
The new course format is one factor
The faculty’s student representative has not yet received any complaints about the design or the examination of the course, in spite of the disappointing course results. It has been completely silent from the students’ side. But the new layout of the course can be one of the reasons for the quality drop.
“The course has just been rearranged, it has been made an independent course. It is the first time that it is being taught in this revised form”, Hampus Magnusson says, student representative for Technology and society at Malmö högskola.
It has happened before
The problem of a large amount of failing students within one particular course is at the same time not something new for Malmö högskola. In earlier cases students have complained about a discrepancy between teaching and examination.
“There have been problems before at the institution. Teachers that did not teach within a course designed the exam. In those cases the exams have not matched that what had been taught”, according to Hampus Magnusson.
Text: Casper Danielsson
Translation: Paula Dubbink
