The winners (it’s all relative innit) were quick to congratulate themselves on outcomes in the 2020 QILT undergraduate survey

Pleased:  The Regional University’s Network is pleased indeed with member results in the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching survey. CQU and Uni Southern Queensland were two of the top four universities on student experience and all RUN members were above the national average for the overall result.

Griffith U kept it short and as sweet as it could, tweeting that it, “continued to deliver an above average overall undergraduate educational experience when compared to all Australian universities.” Which is completely correct, although it is just above the national average of 68.4 this year – at 70.7.

And Victoria U, in metro Melbourne also dug into the detail in pursuit of the positive – although it appears there is a point to make about the apparent success of its  block teaching model.

VU rated third in the country for learner engagement (61.2) behind Bond U and University of Notre Dame and ahead of the national average (43.2). This is a good result for a university with large numbers o low SES students, especially compared to Bond U. And VU states it was up 14 places year on year for skills development (82.2) – which puts it first in metro Melbourne. It’s also a category where block teaching (small group, intensive study of on short subject at a time) should shine – and appears to.

La Trobe U is also pleased it improved a bit (1.2 per cent) on student support which is better than backwards and was pleased to report it was ahead on overall student satisfaction of its local competitors, Monash U, RMIT and Uni Melbourne. Overall however Lt U stayed just below the all-uni overall average, just like last year.

Pleased indeed: The biggest noise about the bestest news came from Independent Higher Education Australia.

IHEA points to its members’ filling the top 19 to 21 places on all five of the undergraduate satisfaction categories. ““The response of independent higher education providers to the COVID-19 impacts demonstrates the core focus of the independent sector to deliver on what students need most – high quality learning and teaching.,” CEO Simon Finn says.

However private providers had an advantage in the assembling of the surveys –QILT data used is for two years, 2019 and 2020. QILT explains this is about sample size, because student numbers in private providers are way smaller than for universities

But comparing independent provider scores over the two time periods appears to indicate they did not take a huge hit in plague times. Overall student satisfaction was 79.4 in ’18-’19 and 74.9 in ’19-’20. The comparable public university scores are 78.4 in 2019 and 68.4 in ’20.

The scores would be even better for the top end of the non-public sector if the most marginal providers were excluded – the range between the good, bad and the awful is way wider than across the public system.