Birmingham students praise top-class teaching in latest national survey
Students at the University of Birmingham have praised the quality of teaching and learning offered in the latest figures announced by the National Student Survey.
Birmingham students praise top-class teaching in latest national survey
Students at the University of Birmingham have praised the quality of teaching and learning offered in the latest figures announced by the National Student Survey.
The National Student Survey (NSS) – the most comprehensive measure of student satisfaction within higher education – awarded the University of Birmingham an overall satisfaction mark of 88%.
Students praised the quality of teaching on offer at Birmingham, giving the University a satisfaction rating of 91% for ‘teaching and learning’, tied for third place among the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities.
Teaching strength was further highlighted by 94% of respondents who agreed that teaching staff at the University are ‘good at explaining things’.
There was particularly strong feedback for a number of individual subject areas across the spectrum of programmes, ranging from Chemical Engineering, to Theology, and American Studies.
The University of Birmingham’s place at joint tenth in the Russell Group institutions for overall student satisfaction puts it ahead of Nottingham, Manchester and Warwick.
Commenting on today’s results, University of Birmingham Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Eastwood said:
“We believe that providing first-class teaching for our students, and an environment to support learning, is an essential part of being a world class university. We are delighted to see that our students recognise this.”
“We are focused on a major programme of investment; not only will we continue to recruit exceptional teaching staff alongside our pioneering researchers, but over the next twelve months we will see the opening of a number of state-of-the-art facilities made possible by more than £300m of investment in our campus.”
“It’s an exciting time to be a part of the University, and as our students get to experience the benefits of these significant investments such as our new sports centre, an outstanding academic library, and a student services hub in the heart of campus, we are confident that we will see this reflected in future student surveys and league table positions.”
These latest results build on the University’s impressive performance across all higher education league tables. Indeed, when it comes to “graduate prospects” – the number of graduates who enter professional employment or graduate-level further study within six months of graduating - the University of Birmingham is ahead of institutions such as Oxford and LSE, and was recently ranked 4th overall in the UK by The Guardian University Guide 2016.
The National Student Survey was launched in 2005 and is open to all final year degree students at institutions in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The survey is designed to assess students' opinions of the quality of their degree programmes.
NSS is conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).