Latest Student Experience Report Published

The latest study into how students experience university life has been published by the Minister of State for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell O'Connor.

More than 20,000 students attending higher education institutions were surveyed as part of the report. Overall the report found:

• High levels of overall student satisfaction with the quality of teaching the timetabling of studies and the facilities of the institution.

• Students appear to have a clear understanding of what is expected of them from their institution.

• Students also report high levels of 'fitting into' higher education and appear to have few doubts that higher education was the right choice for them. This is further demonstrated by most students reporting that they would recommend their choice of programme to other students.

Publishing the report, Minister Mitchell O Connor said: "Having access to high quality data, and hearing more from students on their experience of higher education is critical to inform sound policy decisions to ensure we are doing the right things for our student cohort. This report gives us a student perspective or 'voice' which is of critical importance.

"This represents a very useful study into the social dimension of student life, and it will inform what measures we can take to ensure student success, which has so many dependencies. A priority for me as Minister of State for Higher Education, is to provide target groups outlined in the National Plan for Equity of Access 2015-2019 with more opportunities to go to college and have a world class positive student experience while there.

"I want to commend the efforts of the Higher Education Authority and Insight Statistical Consulting for the attention to detail as evident in this report. I wish to thank the higher education institutions for their co-operation in facilitating the online survey and especially the students who took time to complete the survey. It has become increasingly accepted that the student perspective or 'voice' is critical to inform sound policy decisions in the higher education field.

"The findings presented in this report will be a valuable resource for all higher education stakeholders."