Contributed by Pete Hodkinson, NZUSA President
This week I had the privilege of launching a research report titled ‘Student Voice in Tertiary Education Settings’ at the Academic Quality Agency’s Support for Quality conference in Auckland.
One of the aspects of the report that particularly stood out for me is the strong evidence of staff working closely with students to achieve quality enhancement. This exhibits itself, for instance, whenever a staff member allows a class representative some class time to talk to their fellow students.
For this research, undertaken by Heathrose Research on behalf of NZUSA and Ako Aotearoa, 113 people were spoken to, including 30 in individual interviews and 83 across 19 focus groups. This included 50 staff members, including academic and services staff, staff from students’ associations (who support and advocate for students) and 63 students.
Part two of the report offers a set of good practice examples from nine TEOs across 30 pages. The TEOs include two PTEs (Approach Community Learning, BEST Pacific Institute of Education), one wānanga (Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi), four ITPs (EIT, NMIT, Otago Polytechnic and Unitec) and two universities (University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington).
Regardless of scale each of these examples serve to illustrate just how pivotal a role staff play in supporting student representation and voice.
Comments from one PTE were that students had been given a sense of responsibility, ownership and equality by teaching staff. At another PTE student leaders were co-elected by their peers and staff. A key ingredient at ITPs is the role of student association staff who work closely alongside students, and clear benefits were seen at ITPs like NMIT from having a proactive CEO, Council and senior management approach to student voice.
Class-representative systems are a strong element at universities. At Victoria University support for representatives at that level has been related to a recognition by the university that students are the best advocates for teaching and learning. It is heartening to see a quote from a VUWSA representative that academic staff are hungry to get feedback.
Reasons given by students for taking on these representative roles cover a range of motivations and benefits from a desire for self-development and leadership, through to the opportunities to make a difference in their area of study, to get to know staff better, and to gain confidence themselves in the course.
All of the practice examples illustrate a diversity of approach, not all of which can be readily or easily compared from one to the other. Nonetheless taken together they all help to reinforce the key finding of the final report, namely that the presence of an organisational culture of representation that values student voice is critical to good practice.
There are some significant issues and criticisms raised in this report, around which some debate can hopefully be framed.
One of the highly practical issues is that student representatives are often woefully under-resourced in terms of the time and tools they need to adequately represent the student voice. Students are too often an isolated voice on committees and this becomes more apparent, and more difficult, at higher levels within the tertiary education organisation. Of equal concern is the gap between collecting feedback and taking steps to let students know what changes are actually being actioned.
There are some real tensions to resolve around areas such as the weight given to a collective ‘voice for’ students versus approaches, like surveys, that are more reliant on securing a ‘voice of’ individual students.
Another area of tension that particularly interests me is the ways that students are perceived by management and staff at tertiary education organisations. Whether students are primarily viewed as consumers/customers on the one hand, or as partners/ members of a learning community on the other, is a tension for all organisations in a fee-paying environment.
Both of these tensions are well canvassed in the Student Voice report. On behalf of our members NZUSA will now be collaboratively rolling out the tools it has produced throughout the remainder of the year.
As we do this we will also be rolling out a supporting campaign under a simple banner: “Nothing About Students, Without Students”.
We look forward to engaging with members of TEU as we take this valuable opportunity to highlight the role of the Student Voice.
Note: The full Student Voice report, along with handouts that summarise features and indicators of good practice and a set of reflective questions are being made available to download from the Ako Aotearoa website, with a standalone compilation of case studies to follow later this month.