Listening to Students

Changing courses. Integrating foreign students. Finding work after graduation.

These are just some of the questions you suggested for Lord Young, Minister for Students, on Q&A website Yoosk.com and The Student Room.

We invited NUS president Wes Streeting to put the most popular questions to Lord Young on camera. 

Wes also asked David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education, your questions about all things HE.

Check out the full video responses here.

Students can now post their questions to Lord Young, Minister for Students, directly via a new website.

Lord Young wants to hear from students about their life at university. In addition to the regular visits to universities and colleges, DIUS has joined with Yoosk to create a space for students to post their questions. The most popular questions will get answered by Lord Young via video.

Take a look and post a question…

When we go on visits to universities, the thing we hear most from students is the need for better information, advice and guidance. It was also a key topic raised in the National Student Forum’s report.

There is a lot of useful information out there for people wanting to find out more about going to university. But I want to make it easier for people to find and understand that information. I want us to make it easy for people to find online communities where they can hear from other’s about the experience they’ve had at university.

An example of where we are doing this is our recent partnership with The Student Room. We have developed some new resources for people over 21 who are thinking about getting into higher education. They include:

• an interactive map to help potential mature students find out about the options available at individual universities and colleges
• videos of mature students’ stories
• links to a mature student forum, so potential mature students can get their questions answered

See The Student Room for details.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to update the information offered on DirectGov to mature students and graduates.

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

David Lammy MP

Lord Young talks about the Listening to Students blog.

A transcript of this video is available at here.

Lord Young chaired a session with the National Student Forum, John Denham and David Lammy last week where the Government’s response to the NSF report was handed over.

The response recognises the relevance of the Forum’s recommendations and the innovative forward-thinking that produced them. Many of the recommendations are for areas where there are existing, though insufficiently widespread, measures already in place, and the Forum’s report will help to drive these forward and spread best practice around the whole HE sector.

Download a copy of the Government response to the Forum’s Annual Report for 2008 (PDF 284KB)

Like many good ideas, the idea behind the National Student Forum is simple.  It just offers a chance for a very mixed group of students to reflect on the way higher education works in England and to suggest ways it could improve.   Most services are better when they are designed in discussion with the people who use them and education is no different.   Not all of our ideas will get acted on immediately (though some will) but the most valuable result is really the conversation that is now going on between us as students and the government and the people who run universities and colleges.   

Maeve Sherlock is the Chair of the National Student Forum, which was set up by DIUS in 2008 to give a greater voice to students on Higher Education courses across England.

Lord Young met twelve students from Birkbeck College, University of London, which specialises in part-time, evening higher education.

Their discussion covered the following topic areas:

• Part-time student funding – there was agreement amongst the students that students studying part-time are not given sufficient financial support;

• Funding for masters students – again, there was a sense that the financial support for those studying one-year masters courses was inadequate;

• The Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) – some students suggested that there could be more encouragement aimed at disability groups to get them into higher education, and that the DSA could be better advertised by universities. Information on the DSA can be found here:

• The teaching and learning experience at Birkbeck – the students were full of praise for the resources and teaching at Birkbeck—they were especially enthusiastic about the approachability of their tutors;

• Pastoral care for students – there was a discussion about whether pastoral care is a priority at a university that specialises mostly in part-time education, and the consensus was that for some students it is very important.

Following his visit Lord Young said: “I really enjoyed meeting the group of students at Birkbeck. I found it helpful to hear their concerns directly, particularly on the issue of studying part-time. Part-time study is becoming increasingly popular and we expect the numbers of students choosing to study part-time to carry on increasing. That is why we have included the issue of part-time study as one of the themes of the HE debate, which is currently underway. The debate will feed into a framework for HE for the next 15-20 years which we expect to publish in late Spring. On the subject of the DSA, HEFCE are looking into this as part of their review of their policies relating to disabled students; this was an issue raised by the 2008 Public Accounts Committee report into retention of students in higher education.”

In attendance were approx 15 post-grad students and members of staff from the University marketing and post-grad departments.

The main areas covered in the listening exercise were IAG and student experience.

Information, advice and guidance

• More advice and guidance on university course options for students when choosing GCSE subjects
• Regarding information for international students received before arriving in the UK:
• Students mentioned being overloaded with information
• IAG not always clear about the differences in the HE system and structure (semesters etc.)
• IAG does not cover issues such as local laws, customs – in particular around finding accommodation (paying a bond etc.)

There was quite a lot of discussion around international students not able to get employment / on to graduate programmes in the UK following graduation. Discussion also touched on getting work experience whilst studying, and asked how universities can play a bigger role in this.

Student experience:

• Students highlighted that this differs greatly from undergrad to post-grad, mainly with the ratio of students to teachers being higher in the latter.
• Request that more effort be put in by universities to fill vacancies across the campus with student
• Students generally found the accommodation at Coventry to be good, if not a little expensive.
• The short residency terms at undergrad accommodation (the cheaper option as compared to post-grad accomm) restricts use by post-grad students. This also means that international post-grad students often don’t get the full ‘English’ experience when they study here as they are often in halls of residence with other international students.