National Student Survey open for 2017

It’s that time of year again when final year students across the country are invited to fill in the National Student Survey (NSS), also known as Imperial’s bane of existence. Last year’s remarkably low student satisfaction scores saw Imperial dropping in ranking from number ten to 21 out of 24 Russell Group universities.

Whereas in the past this hasn’t been a priority issue for Imperial, the NSS has now become a fundamental part of the newly introduced Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and could affect tuition fee rates and the number of overseas students allowed. The introduction of the framework is supposed to “ensure all students receive an excellent teaching experience that encourages original thinking” according to Minister for Universities and Science Jo Johnson. However it has been widely criticised and even despite amendments last November, concerns remain. As Professor Stephen Curry told felix earlier last year “ [TEF] still risks becoming burdensome and too heavily driven by metrics which (as we all know) do a very poor job of capturing or characterising educational quality, which is the thing that students, staff and government all ought to be working together on.”

TEF also remains unpopular with the National Union of Students (NUS). Earlier last year a national education demo took place demanding “no ifs, not buts, no education cuts”. In a recent article for the Guardian, Sorana Vieru, vice-president higher education for the NUS denied any value to the NSS when it comes down to improving quality of teaching.

“TEF is a tool by which to raise tuition fees, taking a poorly thought through approximation of teaching quality that Johnson himself has admitted is a test pilot, and using it to dramatically reshape the university landscape across England, with unknown economic and social impacts,” she writes.

The NUS will be coordinating a nationwide boycott of the NSS. Vieru’s appeal encourages students to stay strong and resist selling out. “Don’t allow your feedback to be used against you, don’t fill in the NSS. Not for a free coffee, not for an Amazon voucher, not even for a crack at a free iPad.

“By boycotting, students will use the NSS for its true purpose – to show that we are incredibly dissatisfied. Not necessarily with our courses or the university, but with the government and its attempts to dishonestly suggest it cares about the quality of our teaching, when really it’s just trying to raise fees again.”