Top UK Universities Boycott National Student Survey

This year’s results of the UK’s National Student Survey have been published, but some Russell Group universities are missing because they refused to take part.

Universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, and University College London (UCL) joined nationwide protests and boycotted the survey in opposition to the government’s plan to use National Student Survey results to raise tuition fees.

The National Student Survey is sent to final-year students each year and is usually used to give universities feedback on the quality of their teaching. However, under the new Teaching Excellence Framework, universities with high satisfaction scores could be allowed to charge higher tuition fees.

Despite efforts to broaden participation, only 12,000 students took part in this year’s survey, and one-third did not respond, according to The Independent.

Among those who did respond, 84% of final-year students said they were satisfied with the quality of their education, down 2 percentage points from the past three years.

Amatey Doku, vice president for higher education at the National Union of Students, said: “The government wants to use today’s National Student Survey results to allow universities with high scores to raise tuition fees from £9,000 to more than £10,000 by 2020, as part of its harsh reforms to higher education.

“Members have made it very clear to us that they find this unacceptable, and have asked us to do everything we can to oppose the crude link between their so-called ‘teaching excellence framework’ and tuition fee increases.

“The data released today makes it clear just how easily these figures can be distorted, and how unreliable they are as a measure of teaching quality within this framework. It is a reminder that students oppose ever-rising tuition fees and are willing to use their power to challenge any hasty changes in the education sector that work against them.

“We will continue to call for the link between tuition fees and the National Student Survey to be severed, and encourage students’ unions across the country to take the same action.”

Featured image: jisc.ac.uk