Monday 21-01-2019 - 16:17

This week the National Student Survey (NSS) opens and Durham SU have decided not to actively promote the survey. The NSS has its problems, and we’d rather lay out our views so you can make an informed decision on whether or not to take part.

The survey asks finalists to answer 27 questions about their experience at university, ranging from questions about the quality of teaching on courses and the availability of student support, to the appropriateness of resources that the University provides. An issue with these questions is that they are a blunt instrument for capturing the student experience. They fail to capture the breadth of the opportunities that universities offer to students and don’t provide an adequate chance for students to talk meaningfully about their individual experiences of university life. In attempting to commodify our experiences, it can provide a reductionist account of life as a Durham student.

But perhaps even more central to our concerns with the NSS is the role it plays in the damaging marketisation of higher education through its influence on the Teaching Excellence Framework (the gold, silver or bronze rating universities are awarded in regards to their quality of teaching) and University league tables.

Despite most agreeing that TEF is a poor measure of teaching quality and league tables fail to capture the entirety of the student experience, the impact of these is far more wide ranging than just poorly representing the experiences different universities offer. These metrics and tables promote often unhelpful competition between universities which have traditionally benefitted from academic collaboration and the sharing of knowledge, instead turning inward and protecting the unique practices which they believe give them an advantage in recruiting students.

This commodified view of education also impacts on how we as students view our role in our time at university, sometimes putting unhealthy pressure on ourselves in our studies because we feel the need to make the most of an education we feel we have bought. This impedes our ability to benefit from the opportunities for personal development our education should offer.

The hastily planned, rapid expansion we have seen at Durham and the knock on impact on student experience is also tied to league tables and marketisation, as the current fee regime incentivises higher ranked institutions to recruit quickly to increase revenue. At the lower end of the tables, universities increasingly struggle to recruit from a smaller student pool which has seen several universities at risk of closure, leaving students uncertain as to whether they can finish their degrees at their current universities.

However, it is for these exact reasons that universities tend to sit up and listen to the results of the NSS. At all levels of the University NSS results are often the first item discussed at the beginning of the year, shaping departmental strategies for the coming year.

The results often flag up important issues students have had with their education which students might otherwise have struggled to raise, and as Officers we have had many constructive conversations with the University about changes they need to make off the back of the NSS results. They have led to work being carried out on how we can improve assessment feedback, how we can make students’ academic representation more effective, the need to improve timetabling and more.

So as a Union, we’d encourage you to consider these issues and make your own call as to whether to complete the NSS or not.