20 June 2019
M Whytock
By ema
il: [FYI request #10404 email]
Dear M Whytock
Official information request for information related to the Faculty of
Engineering and Computer Science
I refer to your official information request dated 28 May 2019:
“May I please have a break down of all students enrolled in a degree run by the
Faulty of Engineering (interested primarily in BEng(Hons) and BSc). May I
please have total student numbers, and student numbers broken down by degree
and major (e.g. 2017 1000 students total, 600 doing a BEng in software, 300
doing a BSc in CompSci, etcetc).
May I also have a grade distribution breakdown for papers ENGR121 and
ENGR122 for the history of the courses e.g. ENGR121 2017 A+ 5, A 3, A- 10.... 2016
A+ 2, A 7, A- 4....
I would also like to know for the numbers of failing grades, the number of students
who retook the paper, number of students who drop out of uni directly after
failing, and number of students who switch majors/degrees directly after failing
the paper (for each year in history pf the paper). e.g ENGR121 2017 total failing
grades: 25, number of retakers: 17, number of uni dropouts: 2, number of
major/degree switchers: 6
May I also please have any data you have pertaining to the drop out rates of
ENGR121/ENGR122 for the history of the courses - numbers of students who were
enrolled and dropped out of the paper, a distribution of what stage of the course
they dropped out in (maybe timeline can be week 0-2, week2-6, week6+ .I would
also like to know the number of students who after dropping ENGR121 or 122
switch degrees/majors or drop out of uni directly after dropping out of the course.
This would be for each year in the history of the course too. e.g ENGR121 2017 no.
of course drops: 19 , weeks0-2:12, weeks 2-6: 5, week 6+: 2, no of uni dropouts:
3, no of major switches: 13)
In addition, (I know this may not be possible due to privacy reasons) do you have
any statistics as to what courses people switch into after dropping these courses
e.g. 50% of people who drop ENGR121 will switch into MATH151, or can you
provide any data that would allow me to analyse and extract this kind of
statistics.”
The OIA requires that we advise you of our decision on your request no later than 20
working days after the day we received your request. Unfortunately, it will not be possible
to meet that time limit and we are therefore writing to notify you of an extension of the
time to make our decision, to the 19th of July.
This extension is necessary because your request is for a large quantity of information and
meeting the original time limit would unreasonably interfere with our operations.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information
about
how
to
make
a
complaint
is
available
at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of your request with us, including this decision, please feel
free to contact me a
t [VUW request email]. Yours sincerely
Georgia Tawharu
Adviser, Information Access and Copyright