Students rate top research unis badly for educational experience

Four of Australia’s top research universities are among the worst rated by undergraduate students for educational experience.

Australian university students’ rating of their educational experience has picked up following the pandemic, but not reached pre-pandemic levels.

Four of Australia’s large research universities are among the worst rated by undergraduate students for educational experience, with the universities of Sydney, Melbourne, NSW and Monash clustered near the bottom of the latest official survey.

The University of Sydney was given a positive rating by only 68.8 per cent of its students in the federal government-backed survey, with the University of NSW only slightly better at 69.9 per cent, the University of Melbourne at 71.8 per cent and Monash University at 72.7 per cent.

Only Southern Cross (67.1 per cent) and Charles Darwin (67.9 per cent) scored worse.

The universities most valued by their students for educational experience are three small private institutions: the University of Divinity topping the scale with a positive educational experience rating of 91 per cent, followed by Avondale at 88.3 per cent and Bond at 86.1 per cent.

The best-performing public universities were Edith Cowan at 81.8 per cent, Deakin (81) and the New England (80.7).

The student experience survey, which was based on more than 230,000 responses from students during last year, also showed that students rated non-university higher education providers, such as private colleges, ahead of universities for educational experience.

On average, 75.7 per cent of undergraduate university students rated their educational ­experience as positive, compared to 78.6 per cent of students at higher education institutions that were not universities.

The 2.9 percentage-point gap was larger than in 2021 when non-universities scored 1.1 percentage points better than universities.

The top performing non-university – the Leaders Institute, which offers business degrees – scored a 100 per cent positive rating for educational experience over the 2021-22 two-year period. It was closely followed by the Jazz Music Institute (98.1 per cent) and Sheridan College (95.6 per cent).

Overall, 75.9 of all undergraduates at universities and non-universities rated their educational experience positively last year, compared to only 68.7 per cent at the height of Covid in 2020. However the latest number is still below the pre-Covid figure of 78.5 per cent in 2019.

The survey also showed that undergraduates in higher education judge their courses to be weakest in learner engagement (only 55.2 per cent positive) and student support (72.9 per cent positive).

In contrast, 83.6 per cent of ­students rate learning resources positively, 80.5 per cent judge their skills development positively and 80.1 per cent just teaching quality positively.

The survey also showed that female students rate their educational experience higher than male students and that students over 40 are more positive about their educational experience than those under 40.

A separate educational experience survey of international students found that their 2022 rating rebounded sharply after the lows recorded during Covid, with 74.4 per cent recording a positive rating compared to only 63 per cent in 2020. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said it was “great to see the high quality of teaching at Australian universities be recognised by both international and domestic students”.

“It’s a testament to the hard work of our educators,” he said.