A Scottish university has been accused of axing courses to improve its position in league tables.
Students from Abertay University, in Dundee, said ratings from the National Student Survey (NSS) were used to justify the closure of some degree programmes from 2019.
The NSS, where students rate their courses, is an influential measure because data from it is used in the compilation of league tables. However, critics argue it is flawed because it is subjective.
Tam Wilson, president of the students’ association, said: “We are severely disappointed to hear of the drastic reduction in courses.
“We believe this decision is incredibly short-sighted and lacks serious forward strategy and planning.
“This process has placed an undue weight on the NSS results .. rather than directly address the perceived issues within courses.
“Last year, we opposed the NSS survey and encouraged a student boycott for a number of reasons, including our belief that this is not an appropriate or accurate way of measuring attitudes toward their course or the university.”
A spokesman for Abertay University said: “We are currently undertaking a review of our academic portfolio the outcome of which will not affect any of our current students.
“We have taken the decision to cease future recruitment to a total of eight courses, but we do not anticipate any job losses as a result of this decision. Student demand for all these courses has been low.
“We are currently undertaking consultation on ceasing future recruitment to a further three courses, with a decision on this to be made later this month.”
Degrees facing closure include management and the games industry, sound and music for games, psychology and forensic biology, psychology and human resource management and sport and psychology.
Postgraduate courses facing the axe include food and drink innovation, mental health nursing and psychology.
Further consultations are being taken on civil and environmental engineering, environmental science and technology, forensic sciences and international human resource management.
Mary Senior, UCU Scotland official, called for improved consultation on the proposed closures.
She said: “We want the university to consult properly with staff and students before taking decisions to cut courses and to make the interests of students and education the priority in this process.”
“It is important the employer is up front about any implications of course closures, and commits to minimising the impact on students, and avoiding any job losses.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel