The findings of the fourth national student survey (NSS) published this month will be used to drive up academic standards in universities.

The pledge comes from Professor Michael Arthur, chairman of the survey’s steering group and the vice-chancellor at Leeds University, in the wake of publication of the results from 220,000 final-year students.

More students contributed to this year’s survey than any of the previous three. For the first time, all universities taking part achieved the 50% response rate required for their data to be released. And all seven categories of the 22-question survey showed overall satisfaction levels up by 1%-2%.

The NSS was introduced in 2005 shortly after the individual subject review programme — where academics rated their peers — was discontinued. “Vice-chancellors are taking the results very seriously,” says Arthur. “They all have action plans related to the outcomes, so the quality enhancement aspect of the NSS is very important. It’s working better than subject review in that respect.”

Even this year’s student assessment and feedback section saw scores climb from 62% to 64% overall, although it remains well behind all other sections of the survey, some of which gained satisfaction ratings 20% higher. “It shows that we need to work very much harder on assessment and feedback, as it still lags behind. But it is improving,” says Arthur.

Publication of the results followed a difficult year for the NSS with repeated allegations of attempts to influence the findings by university staff eager to avoid poor ratings. “The integrity of the data is crucial,” Arthur warns. Where university departments are deemed to have interfered with the survey’s findings, data for the department concerned will be suppressed from the NSS, he says.

As the NSS slowly replaces (the still useful) subject reviews carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (www.qaa.ac.uk) in our league table, its greater influence can be seen in the rankings. St Andrews, Exeter and Leicester are all riding high at least in part because of exceptional scores in the NSS.

Imperial and LSE lie in third and fourth places in spite of poor NSS scores, which ranks them 97= and 107 respectively for student satisfaction. Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol (ranked 103=, 105= and 108 respectively) all fall in our overall table off the back of poor satisfaction scores.

So a word of caution: don’t choose your university solely on the basis of whose students seem happiest. Overall scores can be misleading; much more useful are the individual subject scores, detailed on pages 58-63 of this guide. For example, biology students at Bristol give a 79% satisfaction rating compared with 62% for politics. Subject ratings show real differences in perceived quality within the same institution, regardless of its overall score.

Barry Taylor, director of communications at the University of Bristol, gets it about right. “The NSS is a good and useful thing, but the results should be handled with care. “For example, students at leading institutions may be especially aspirational. Such characteristics probably helped them get in. They set the benchmark high for others as well as themselves — and rightly so.

“It’s best to see the NSS, like league tables, as an indicator, rather than the be-all and end-all. It should be considered alongside insights that can be gleaned from visits, guides, online social networks and so forth.”

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The government is freezing all student grants and loans and cutting financial support for trainee teachers as a result of the recession, it announced today.

Union leaders said the moves were a “kick in the teeth” after it emerged that tuition fees will also rise by 2.04%, taking the annual charge to £3,290 – nearly £300 more than when fees were introduced in 2006. Grants are to be frozen at £2,906 for the poorest students and loans for living costs are also frozen, while loans to cover tuition fees will rise to cover the increasing fees. Teacher training grants of up to £6,000, which had been universally offered, are to be restricted to people from lower income homes.

David Lammy, the universities minister, said in a written ministerial statement to parliament: “In these difficult economic times, we are continuing to take difficult decisions in the interests of students, universities and taxpayers alike. We have therefore decided to maintain the current package of maintenance support for full-time students, reflecting the current low inflationary environment.”

It is understood ministers were forced into the decision to free up cash to avoid a cut in the grant as student numbers rise.

A promise to give university grants to all students who previously received £30-a-week study grants at school has been reversed in favour of means testing.

Teacher training grants for postgraduates will be cut substantially. Those with household incomes above £34,000 will pay for the majority of their living costs through loans of up to £5,000 instead of grants, adding to the debt mountain for some new graduates. Previously all trainees qualified for non-repayable grants.

The changes apply to England alone and will come into force in September 2010.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “Students are already racking up thousands of pounds of debt. It appears that the inflation rate is being applied where it suits universities, but not where it will improve student support. These real-terms cuts in student support will be felt in students’ pockets.”

The statement to parliament came hours after the government published figures revealing that the proportion of students from the poorest backgrounds is increasing. Some 21% of 18- to 21-year-olds taking degrees last year were from the poorest four socio-economic groups, compared with 18.1% the year before.

David Willetts, the shadow universities minister, said: “Gordon Brown tried to increase support for students in his first week as prime minister and he’s been cutting it back ever since. Students from poorest families will be the victims.

“The government needs to get on with the fees review and look at ways to offer a better deal for poorer students.”

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Graduation is an exciting time in your life, and like most exciting times, it’s bound to be accompanied by a fair amount of awkward moments. While it’s sure to be an unpredictable few days, we can absolutely guarantee that a few things will definitely happen:

1. One of Your Relatives Will Say Something Racist, Then Make an Apology That’s Even More Racist

Most relatives are like Will Smith movies: You see them once a year and they preach to you for two hours about something anyone with half of a brain already knows. Unfortunately, there’s always one relative whose world-view is a little behind the times, and when you’ve come to greet your family after graduation with some of your friends, they’ll say something like, “We couldn’t find you down there, then I saw that you were behind that big chinaman. There’s so many of them! It’s like they’re takin’ over!” Then, the Chinese family behind you will all turn their heads toward your family, causing your relative to say something like, “Nah, I mean takin’ over in a good way, y’know, ’cause they’re good at math and science and laundry and stuff.”

2. Someone in the Crowd Will Have a Dumbass Sign

Graduations are like WWE events; There’s a bunch of people grabbing a mic and talking, and everyone in the stands is holding up a sign that only makes sense to the four people they’re sitting next to that helped them make it. Usually it takes six people standing up to display the sign, and since they’re never sure when you’re coming on stage, and every graduate is dressed the same, they end up getting up and sitting down like they’re club goers at the jersey shore, and someone stepped on their shoe, then quickly apologized.

3. You Will Be Annoyed By Drunken Graduate Sorority Girls

Remember that group of loud, obnoxious sorority girls that ruin every college bar you’ve ever gone to by getting too drunk and talking loudly about how everyone else isn’t attractive enough to talk to them? Well somehow, they got to graduate too, and you’d better believe that they’re showing up completely plastered. They’re easy to spot, thanks to the hodgepodge of inside jokes puffy-painted onto their graduation caps and accessorized with all sorts of annoying, attention-grabbing glitter and pipe-cleaners and shit that only a drunken idiot would find cool. If you happen to have the misfortune of being blind, and your echo-location skills don’t work in the crowded graduation hall, just listen for the high-pitched squeals of mindless whores stumbling over each other, and screaming incessantly to one another about how “their graduation robes are so much hotter than everyone else’s.”

4. Someone You Don’t Really Know Will Introduce You To Their Parents

Remember that kid that you sat two seats down from in your Space Sciences class during the second semester of your freshman year? Of course you don’t, but guess what? He remembers you, and he can’t wait for you to meet his parents. Having your family visit for your graduation is a lot like finding a dead squirrel in your car engine: it’s really not a good thing at all, but you still feel obligated to show it to everyone that you come into contact with for a short time thereafter. The best thing to do when introduced to someone’s family is to smile, be cordial, and get the encounter over with as quickly as possible. Also, for some reason there’s about a sixty percent chance that the kid in your Space Sciences class is named “Kevin.” I don’t know why, but it’s true.

5. There Will Be A Large Applause for a Handicapped Graduate

No matter who they are, or what they did, every time a person in a wheel chair, or with a clear physical disability, receives their diploma, the crowd reacts like that person just sank a three-pointer at the buzzer in game 7 of the NBA finals. This is great, because if there’s one thing handicapped people like, it’s people applauding them solely because they’re handicapped. To really hammer home the point, the audience is tired from loudly applauding, so the next person who gets up, also graduating with the same degree, gets a reaction like it’s the ninth inning of a 12-2 Florida Marlin’s game and someone got a bunt single.

6. Someone On a Cell Phone Will Try to Tell Someone Else Where They Are

No matter how loud, or how large a crowd you’re in, inevitably, there’s someone next to you on a cell phone attempting to shout instructions on how to locate them like it’s the fucking climactic scene of National Treasure and if they’re not found within seconds, a lever will be pulled and they’ll sink into the earth, never to be found again. The worst part is, their instructions usually consist of giving non-descript clues like they’re playing a game of charades and they want people to guess “Chairman of the federal reserve”: “I’m sitting next to a bunch of people in suits…a guy next to me has brown hair…um…I’m waving?!”

7. The Keynote Speaker Will Make a Horrible Analogy

The odds are pretty good that your graduation’s keynote speaker is going to be some obscure author or incompetent politician who has absolutely no way of relating to an audience of bushy-tailed, optimistic young adults. In order to compensate for this, the keynote speaker will make an attempt at an analogy of some sort, to try to bridge the gap between what they know and what it’s like to graduate right now. It’s impossible to tell exactly what type of analogy it will be, but there is one thing that you can be absolutely sure of: it’s going to be terrible. Don’t be surprised to hear something like this:

“In 1885, a whale hunting ship got stranded in the polar ice caps. In the dark of the arctic night, they found themselves hopelessly lodged in 30-foot deep glaciers. Despair was all around them, and within weeks, they were starving. Eventually, the whalers began eating one another, until one last, gluttonous sailor remained. He froze to death several days after, because, after consuming his fellow crewmen, he was now too fat to drag himself off of the deck of the ship. But what happened to the whales that the crew was hunting? Those whales survived. Just like you’ll survive…as college graduates.”

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Walking into a crowded student union bar can Bea daunting experience for a Chinese student, coming from a culture where bars are not necessarily socially acceptable.

Although China’s changing and becoming more westernized, life’s much more tightly structured and the influence of peer group sand the authorities is strong.

Students, who are used to living in same-sex dormitories on campus, may feel daunted at the freedom of the UK campus and find it hard to adjust to a busy social life unconnected with their studies.

The idea of having a special classmate is very important and this relationship is regarded as lifelong. The “cooler” nature of UK universities can leave students feeling isolated.

The severity of the Chinese classroom contrasts with the warmth and friendly relationships outside.”Students and lecturers may eat dinner together,go out together and develop close personal mentoring relationships,”says Turner.

Despite all this, the survey showed that many manage to adjust their attitude and orientation quickly to life in the UK and certainly feel they can be successful in their new learning environment.

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According to the Telegraph UK report A female student, from Homerton College, who was not named, was photographed in a black lacy thong and stockings straddling one of the city’s historic bridges, Clare College Bridge(A popular spot for tourist, Thousands of tourists visit each year).

She agreed to pose for the latest edition of Vivid Magazine, which is published by a group of students once a term and has a circulation of 5,000.

It also has a website featuring a video of women sitting in a changing room and then playing football.


It is the first time a student has appeared topless in a University publication and it has caused an outcry. One student from King’s College said: “I can’t believe she agreed to pose for the magazine. Everyone has been talking about it. I’m sure she must really regret it now.”

Another student, from Clare College, who did not want to be named, added: “Lots of students and professors have seen this. It’s a very risky thing to do when you are studying at one of the top universities in the country.”

The magazine is distributed to all the university colleges. It has featured “page three” girls before but none have been as explicit. The magazine is largely constituted of comment pieces of a political and satirical nature.

The model, who is pictured anonymously in the magazine, has declined to comment on reactions to the photo. Vivid’s editors also refused to offer a statement. The university’s press office was unavailable for comment.

Despite of all criticism i have to admit that this is the One classic Photography. Everything is perfect about this picture.

[Source: Telegraph UK]

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