Emails claiming Western Sydney University (WSU) students’ degrees had been cancelled may have been fakes, but class actions against WSU and the University of Newcastle are all too real after course accreditation snafus left students unemployable.

Those issues relate to Newcastle Uni’s early marketing of its Bachelor of Medical Engineering (BME) course, which Newcastle currently markets as “the only medical engineering degree in NSW” and a “new and exciting discipline”.

Accreditation of uni courses by professional bodies is crucial, since it means graduates have met minimum professional standards required to work in the field – and, in many cases, can transfer those skills overseas through mutual recognition agreements.

Engineering courses must be accredited by Engineers Australia for graduates to practise in Australia, and the provisions of the so-called Washington Accord allow them to progress their careers overseas as Registered Professional Engineers (RPEng).

Other agreements, known as the Sydney Accord and Dublin Accord, spell out mutual recognition for engineering technologists and engineering associates, respectively.

Engineers Australia declined to comment on the case as the matter is before the NSW Supreme Court, however a spokesperson said accreditation is “voluntary and evaluated against the nationally defined entry-to-practice competencies” for the professions.

The class action against the university alleges that it falsely marketed the four-year BME as accredited – promising graduates would be “career ready”.

However, students were informed by email in December 2020 that the earlier promotional material “contained error(s) as to the BME’s Accredited Course status” – with the BME only provisionally accredited by Engineers Australia in 2023.

Unemployable graduates

Newcastle Uni now claims 92 per cent of BME graduates are employed within four months of graduation, but the early cohort has struggled to find work as a result of what they call “misleading or deceptive conduct” by the university during those early years.

As a result, lead plaintiff Andreas Sklavos and other former students argue that they have been “unable to… or materially disadvantaged in” applying for work here and abroad, despite the uni claiming the BME course was accredited from 2017 to 2019.

That has directly impacted their employability and long-term career prospects – and left them $50,000 in debt, with students forced to complete and pay for yet another year of study to earn Engineers Australia accreditation required for unaccredited graduates.

University of Newcastle general counsel Daniel Bell told information Age that the uni denies the claims, arguing that the promotional material in question “noted that the University was seeking provisional accreditation for the BME with Engineers Australia.”

Provisional accreditation status for the degree was granted on 11 December 2023 and the university says it retrospectively applied accreditation status to students that commenced the degree from 2020.

Not an isolated incident

As surprising as it may seem for uni students – who legitimately enrol at universities assuming their three or more years of effort will lead to careers – the Newcastle Uni lawsuit isn’t the only time this has happened.

A similar class action against WSU, for example, alleges that it failed to inform students that its Master of Advanced Imaging (MRI) course wasn’t accredited by the Australian Health Practitioners Registration Authority (AHPRA).

Just as Engineers Australia does for engineers, AHPRA accredits university courses to confirm graduates’ suitability to apply those skills in the health sciences.

This posed problems for students of the three year part-time course, which includes a “mandatory work component” that created legal questions for students that must be health science graduates or AHPRA registered medical practitioners to enrol.

WSU suspended the course at the beginning of this year, leaving students in professional limbo and lodging a class action against WSU.

It’s the latest reputational hit for an institution that’s still suffering the repercussions of a major cybersecurity breach affecting 10,000 students – for which a former student was allegedly arrested in June – with a hoard of personal data recently found on the dark web.

Whether that data is related to the latest scam email scandal – whose allegations of invalid WSU degrees echoes its real-world issues around the MRI course – is unclear, but ongoing issues can’t help an institution eyeing professional partnerships for growth.

WSU recently partnered with Microsoft, for example, to “reimagine how a university can operate in a digital-first environment,” as vice-chancellor Distinguished Professor George Williams AO said.

The university has also partnered with the likes of the NSW Police Force and Western Sydney Philharmonic, aiming to provide professional pathways for students throughout and after their degrees.

“As the matter is before the Courts, the University is limited by what it can say as the matter will be decided on the evidence provided by Australian Law Partners and the University,” a WSU spokesperson told Information Age.

“The University is yet to file a Defence, under the timetable set by the Courts, but is confident of the outcome.”

Queensland’s James Cook University (JCU) recently settled with 27 students that sued it in 2023 alleging its unaccredited Bachelor of Commerce had left them unemployable.

The students enrolled as early as 2019 hoping their financial advising majors would start them on a lucrative professional track, but the course – which was only accredited last year – left them unable to secure work in the regulated financial services industry.

And in 2016, Victoria University settled with a former engineering student after he discovered that its Bachelor of Engineering Building Surveying course had not been accredited by the then Institute of Engineers, Australia (now Engineers Australia).