Student satisfaction declines in key areas – Survey

Students are less satisfied with their courses, lecturers and academic programmes than previously, according to a survey published recently by Israel’s national student union, writes Sarah Levi for The Jerusalem Post.

The survey administered by the Magar Institute asked some 8,000 students who attend a majority of the country’s leading colleges and universities to rank their level of satisfaction with their studies on a scale from one to five. The most noticeable declines in satisfaction are in the quality of teaching by the lecturers, which the survey showed declined from 3.67 to 3.55 points; student-teacher relations, which rated the lecturers overall knowledge and availability, fell from 4.01 to 3.89; and integration of technology into the classroom dropped from 3.62 to 3.45.

Ram Shefa, chairman of the National Union of Israeli Students, said the institutions must change, not only to meet the needs of their students but also the demands of the global workplace. “The system is in a state of stagnation and must undergo a comprehensive re-evaluation, otherwise the trend will continue. Academic studies in the 21st century cannot be the same as those that existed decades ago,” he said.
Full report on The Jerusalem Post site