Student satisfaction at UOW rebounds after height of pandemic

UOW fared well in the satisfaction ratings, rated 13^th overall of all universities surveyed in Australia for 2022 in the federal government's QILT survey.

Recently-completed students delivered UOW a rating of 82.7 for skills development (up from 80.6 last year), 82.7 for teaching quality (up from 79.2), 86.9 for learning resources (up from 78.8) and 75.7 for student support (up from 70.9).

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The overall quality of entire education experience rating was 78.2, a significant jump from 70.1 last year.

But while teaching quality and resources were rated as impressive, student engagement is still lagging - despite a leap to a rating of 62.6 out of 100 from 43.8 the previous year.

Almost all universities scored much lower with engagement, particularly last year. While UOW's Learner engagement rating was by far its lowest result, the jump this year brought it to eight percentage points above the national average.

The learner engagement rating relates to students' experience interacting with their peers, within and outside study environments, as well as having a "sense of belonging" to the institution.

UOW Deputy Vice-Chancellor Theo Farrell described the university as "one of the top-ranked public universities in NSW for student satisfaction".

"These results reflect a huge team effort across the whole university to enhance student support, and the learning resources and experiences we provide at UOW," he said.

"Our close partnership with students has been key to this success."

The UOW College did not fare as well, ranked 64^th out of 77 Non-University Higher Education Institutions.

But it still delivered an increase across every one of the satisfaction indicators, with teaching quality up from 69.9 to 80, and learning resources rated 81.3, up from 67.9 the previous year.

There had been a sharp decline in student ratings of their universities in 2020, following moves to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic which included staff cuts and off-campus online teaching.

But an upward trend developed in 2021 as students an universities adapted, and continued for 2022.

The QILT satisfaction ratings deliver results that significantly depart from other quality education metrics.

The top-rated universities are niche religious education providers, with the University of Divinity in Melbourne again No.1 nationally, the Seventh-Day Adventist Avondale University at Cooranbong coming in second and Bond University on the Gold Coast third.

The University of Melbourne and the University of NSW, both regular high performers for quality, were in the bottom five nationally.

The Australian National University, often rated as Australia's best, was ranked ninth for satisfaction. While it delivered high grades for teaching quality (84.7) and learning resources (84.0), it was let down by student engagement (60.9) and student support (66.5).