Dr Diana Beech, Chief Executive Officer, London Higher said:
“The annual HEPI/AdvanceHE Student Academic Experience Survey is an invaluable source of information about how students are feeling about their higher education experience during each academic year. We are particularly encouraged that the 2023 survey includes commentary broken down by regional variations, having been the first UK sector body to produce a regional analysis of the 2022 data in our Living and Learning in London report.
Although it is always a pleasure to report on what we are doing well in London, we must acknowledge that there are certain challenges too. London’s universities take more students from hyper-diverse backgrounds, including some of the most socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnically-diverse students in the country, who require different approaches to learning to enable them to participate in higher education and succeed. This particular factor will almost certainly be contributing to the finding that students in London were less likely to feel they were encouraged to take responsibility for their learning.
We now urge policymakers to consider these specific regional nuances before jumping to negative conclusions from the data, and we are committed to working with our members to investigate this particular data point and finding ways to address this.”
