Information regarding university information was provided by elected student representatives detailing the areas set out below (see appendix 8 for full results):
3.2.1
The Kent Union Education Sabbatical Officer has also commented on a number of issues which he has had direct dealings with during the last 12 months. Many of the issues which he comments on have been discussed at University committees.
3.2.2
A month long consultation took place in May 2008 in order to give students at the University an opportunity to comment on this submission. A number of Kent Union representative committees were consulted before the final submission was produced; these included Union Council, Education Committee and Education Forum. The information that they provided influenced the final submission.
3.2.3
Where possible and appropriate we have attempted to take into account the views and experiences of all sections of the University population- undergraduates, postgraduates, home and international, young and mature, part-time and full-time students. We have not commented on the experiences of students at any of the colleges which have collaboration arrangements, as there will be a separate audit of these colleges in forthcoming years. Despite having access to a wealth of data there are limitations with the information which we have gathered.
Kent Union has difficulty communicating with the post graduate community (both taught and research students). The low response rate in the University’s post graduate surveys suggests that this problem is at institution level as well as within Kent Union. The post graduate officer went to great lengths to contact postgraduate research students; however the number who responded was extremely low. Kent Union staff ran a focus group and offered incentives to PGR students for their time. Case studies from this focus group have been included and, despite low attendance (4 students), there was representation from each of the faculties.
Part-time students were difficult to engage with regarding their experiences at the University. Despite there being over 3000 part-time students at the University, the cohort are notoriously hard to interact with. Kent Union finds it extremely difficult to recruit part-time student representatives and most positions have remained vacant in recent years. A survey of part-time and mature students was due to be sent out in February 2007 but due to a slow response rate to the 2008 NSS, the release of the survey has been postponed and therefore there are no results included in the submission. Information from part-time students included in this submission comes from the Welcome to KENT Survey 2006.
The University’s campus at Medway has 1755 students; however there is no quantitative data which is specific to the campus. Students studying at Medway were included in all of the University’s surveys and the Kent Union Satisfaction Survey but the number of responses from this group was low. However, Medway students were less satisfied than their Canterbury counterparts in all areas surveyed. A specific survey was sent out to course representatives at the Medway campus but again the response rate was extremely low. Therefore the views in this submission largely reflect the views and experiences of students studying on the Canterbury campus.
The University’s campus in Brussels has over 200 postgraduate students and operates its own student representation structure. Despite attempts to gather feedback from the representatives no data was retrieved. The results from the 2007 PGT survey provide an insight into the student experience at this campus; however the submission only reflects the student experience at the Brussels to a limited extent.