Thursday 19-08-2021 - 10:30

An update from SU President Seun Twins, Undergraduate Academic Officer Charlie Procter, and Postgraduate Academic Officer Declan Merrington

At this time of year, we see many headlines about the National Student Survey – a survey that all finalists are invited to fill out by the Office for Students to capture their time at university. While these public scores can be a useful tool for holding universities to account, the survey has its flaws. 

The NSS turns unique educational experiences into products to be bought and reviewed, pitting universities against each other in categories that aren’t necessarily the most important. Where is the league table that tells us how well a university is doing at decolonising or looking after their students’ wellbeing? How can we pretend it’s possible to compare nuanced educational experiences in the way we might compare Amazon reviews for a new phone? If we give these surveys weight, we are buying into this narrative, a narrative that backs up the marketisation of education and justifies rising tuition fees.   

And in this simplified league, Durham University as a whole has seen a decrease. In this year’s NSS, there were only three questions where Durham University saw an increase in positive responses between 2019-20 and 2020-21. We have to bear in mind that this demonstrates a wider sense of concern about several areas of the student experience at Durham.  

Particularly notable falls for Durham University were in the areas of Assessment and Feedback (down an average of 6.2% on 2020), Learning Resources (down an average of 12.08% on 2020), Learning Community (down an average of 5.28% on 2020), Student Voice (down an average of 4.39% on 2020), and Overall Satisfaction (down 6.45% on 2020). As an SU, we’ll be paying attention to how the University addresses these areas over the next year.

The NSS asks just one question about SUs – how well students think their SU represents their academic interests. This is a widely criticised question: academic interests are not what students associate with their SU and are only a small part of the rich student experience at Durham University. It’s no wonder the Office for Students are looking to change this question.  

The fact Durham SU’s score was one of Durham University’s few increases this year (29.4% in 2021 compared to 28.91% in 2020) is promising, but I accept that it could be higher. This need for improvement, however, is not reflective of the amount of work we have completed this year to represent students’ academic interests. Instead, what we need to get better at is how we communicate what we are doing to students. Because in a year when education was hugely impacted by a pandemic, we’ve advanced students’ academic interests and protected their rights to fair assessment.  

This looks like bespoke safety net policies for postgraduate and undergraduates, a sector-leading postgraduate access participation plan, making the case for more academic representation on SU Assembly, free academic societies, and paid internships to do necessary work decolonising the curriculum. These might not always be the most glamorous achievements, but they are unique to Durham SU and greatly affect students’ lives.  

A lot of it comes down to perception: to the interpretation of the question, to how much students know about what we’re doing, and to how much you buy into a widely criticised survey. Independent research showed that 73% of students agree that a collective representative organisation is important at Durham, and so we’ll continue to be here for students, and we’ll get better at making sure you know about it.