UNE is Australia’s student-first university. We have proof, if more proof is needed, in the latest student experience data from QILT. Our students rank us as providing the best student experience of any public university in Australia – by a good margin.
UNE earned an 83 per cent positive rating for “educational experience” from its undergraduate students. Ahead of us in the rankings were three theological schools and Bond University. The ‘prestige’ universities in the Group of Eight averaged 74.5%. Across NSW and ACT institutions the average was 75.6%.
The rankings looked pretty much the same for postgraduate student satisfaction – UNE was awarded an 82% satisfaction rating – except that James Cook replaced Bond.
(QILT stands for Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching – a Government-endorsed suite of surveys that measure trends in education.)
We’re not new to this. UNE has earned the Good University Guides five-star ranking for the same undergraduate metric across 20 unbroken years – the only university to ever do so! We know how to support our students.
“Educational experience” is a phrase containing many things, but all of those things involve people.
It starts and finishes with academics, who shepherd students from a place of uncertainty through to graduating with essential knowledge and the confidence to apply it. Behind the lecturers stands a small army of people dedicated to making things work, and fixing things that don’t. Our systems are imperfect, as systems generally are, but that means we have room to further improve the student experience as we progressively improve our systems.
UNE started focusing on students more 70 years ago. UNE’s first vice-chancellor, Robert Madgwick, said it was the University’s job to teach people, not subjects or courses of study. The danger, he said, “is that the subject may become more important than the student”.
We’re exploring new and unconventional ways to carry this “student first” principle forward, and how to expand it to the communities that our students are part of. Watch this space – and if you’re thinking about university study, you know where to come to have the best overall experience.
- UNE Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Moran
