8.4
The Student Voice

In the 2004 submission 56% of Course Reps ‘somewhat’ agreed that there is an opportunity to inform the University of opinions on quality and standards but 15% disagreed. Although we have no data for an identical question in this academic year we did ask respondents in the Kent Union Satisfaction Survey if they believe that the University listens to the views of students and 66% of respondents believed that they did. This suggests that increased importance has been placed on the student voice since the last audit.

The Course Representative structure was at an early stage of its development when the last audit was carried out and it was noted that there were mixed views of student representation and little formal monitoring of the effectiveness of the system. Furthermore opportunities for facilitated training were limited. Since the last audit a full time staff member has been employed by Kent Union to provide support and training for the Course Rep system. Kent Union satisfaction surveys suggest that 57% of students are aware of who their Course Rep is and 76% of students are aware that they can ask their course rep to raise an issue on there behalf at SSLC meetings.

Tailored representative training has been offered to all course representatives and over 60% of representatives take up this opportunity. At the beginning of the 2005/06 academic year information packs were sent to academic departments detailing information regarding the Course Rep system. Annually, the Representation and Democracy Manager meets with a staff member from those academic departments that have agreed for Kent Union to run the Course Rep Scheme to discuss developments with the system.

Feedback from staff during preparation for the last audit suggested that students often did not attend the necessary meetings. The Course Rep survey asks representatives to note how many SSLC meetings they attend across the year; in 2007 only 4% of reps failed to attend any meetings and just 1% in 2008. These results are extremely encouraging although the response rate of the survey means that the statistics are not a completely accurate account of attendance at SSLC meetings but a good indication.

The 2004 submission highlighted that the majority of representatives were selected rather than elected, the latter being the preferred option of Kent Union as it means that the representatives have a mandate to work on. The 2007 Course Rep Survey found that 40% of respondents had been elected and 60% had volunteered for representative positions. In 2008 Kent Union ran the elections for 13 academic departments on the Canterbury campus but there are still a number of departments taking responsibility for the selection of representatives. Results from the 2007 Kent Union Satisfaction Survey indicated that in this academic year 72% of students were made aware of the Course Rep elections by their department; this highlights that more could be done to promote the process.

Whilst the University has clear procedures for gathering feedback, the 2004 submission commented on the lack of information which students receive about the results of feedback surveys. The audit team recommended that the University consider mechanisms to ensure that students are aware of the results of their feedback and any action take