When a student is absent,the teacher checks in with them. And students tend to be older and know themselves:some want to be a priest or minister;others would like to deepen their faith;and the remainder are studying for work,such as becoming a counsellor or chaplain.
“People are choosing what they want to study ... rather than,‘I’ve just left school,I should go to uni and I’m not quite sure what I want to do,’ ” said Sherlock.
The survey found that most universities’ student ratings for the quality of the entire educational experience increased from 2021 to 2022.
Higher education consultant Claire Field said student feedback showed the Group of Eight universities – Australian National University,Queensland,WA,Adelaide,Monash,Melbourne,UNSW and Sydney – needed to invest more in supporting students who were paying a lot for degrees. The price of tertiary education has more than doubled over the past two decades – one of the fastest-growing expenses in the country.
“It begs the question as to how some of our highly regarded,well-ranked research-intensive universities are doing very poorly and privates and other public universities like[higher-performing] Edith Cowan are doing so much better,” she said.
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“It’s good to get good employment outcomes,but if you’ve had a miserable,terrible time and really struggled with your studies,that’s not great either.”
Field said students wanted engaged lecturers. “We also have problems with wage underpayments in some well-regarded universities,so if their staff are highly casualised,do they have sufficient time to give feedback to students?
“We also know that young people the world over have struggled with mental health because of the pandemic. So there’s another question:what is it that Edith Cowan or Swinburne are doing differently with their support to students?”
But UNSW’s deputy vice chancellor of academic quality,Professor Merlin Crossley,said one could not compare a small university with the Group of Eight.
“They’re just not comparable. They know the names of all their students. And that’s great,that’s great. But then their employment outcomes aren’t the same as ours,” he said.
Crossley said UNSW,which had the fourth-least-satisfied students last year,had work to do. “These numbers are complicated by things like COVID,things like student mix,things like discipline,” he said.
“Our university is a fairly intense university. We do push students a little bit out of their comfort zone,and if you’re out of your comfort zone,you might feel a bit uncomfortable.”
The University of Sydney said its student survey results were improving and it was working closely to lift student experience.
Monash University said recent surveys of more than 7000 students found 85 per cent had a strong sense of belonging. It also said:“Comparing institutions on the basis of satisfaction can be problematic,given the subjective nature of satisfaction judgments and the fact that students’ expectations of their higher education may vary considerably.”
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Edith Cowan was the top public university on the list and the only one from WA to make it into the top 10.
Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Arshad Omari said he was “incredibly proud” of the result.
“We believe it is not just the top-quality teaching and education,but the personal approach our dedicated staff take to each and every student that differentiates the ECU experience,” he said.
“We have a continuous improvement culture and constantly measure the various indicators of student success,making adjustments where needed.”
The University of Melbourne was contacted for comment.
Andrew Hateley-Browne,35,is a web developer by day who has followed his interest in radical religious movements in 19th-century Australia into a graduate diploma in divinity at the University of Divinity.
“I’ve always felt that I’ve had a lot of access to my lecturers and that kind of personal touch. Really being able to curate my academic experience here has been striking. I think it’s probably easy to get lost at other universities. My experience here has been I’ve had access to a lot of interesting academic opportunities.”