This week’s national student survey results for Uni Melbourne reveal it lagging the university system as a whole. Uni Melbourne acknowledges, “there is work to do”

The University of Melbourne regularly rates number one in Australia and in the world top 50 universities on league tables, variously based on research and other performance metrics, and surveys of academics.

But its own students do not rate it highly for aspects of the education they received during the Covid lock-down years, as revealed in the Student Experience Survey, part of the Commonwealth’s Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching resource.

The 2021 QILT, which appeared this week, sets out system-wide improvements on 2020 scores, including for Uni Melbourne, but the nation’s most internationally rated university lagged behind overall.

In 2021 system-wide student satisfaction was 73 per cent, a near five per cent lift on 2020, (still down on the pre-Covid 2019 figure of 78 per cent). However Uni Melbourne scored 52 per cent in 2020 and 63 per cent last year, the lowest rating in the system for both years.

A university spokesperson tells CMM, “we are disappointed with the 2021 QILT survey results, which make it clear that we need to step up our determination and focus on improving the quality of our engagement with students inside and outside the classroom.”

Nor is QILT an outlier, the university advises the 2021 result is “consistent with wider data.”

However, “our ambitious Advancing Students and Education strategy, which will launch later this year, aims to transform the education and student experience.” “We continue to engage with our students and staff so that we can maintain and improve our place as one of the world’s best universities,” the spokesperson added.