The 2021 National Student Survey (NSS) results were released on Friday 16th July, giving insight into attitudes and satisfaction levels among final-year students at the University of Greenwich.  

I am delighted and proud to see Greenwich Students’ Union (GSU) ranked to be among the Top 10 London Students’ Unions in the NSS for overall satisfaction. Compared to last year’s data, overall satisfaction is shown to have grown by 3%. This is a triumph and reflects the incredible efforts of our Students’ Union (SU) Staff across all our campuses, the former Sabbatical Officers, and the great work we do in partnership with the University of Greenwich. 

The Union acknowledges that despite the positive results of Question 26 – the only question to explicitly mention the SU – some areas of the University may feel under-served by their Union. This feedback is valuable and will be taken into consideration when directing our focus in ways that ensure GSU caters to the needs of all our members. We are committed to improving our services to these groups and working with the University to boost all areas of student satisfaction across our institution.  

The improvement of scores indicates that the work we have done in the past year is valued by students.

In striving to support our members impacted by the pandemic, we launched the Retention Project – an initiative that had student-staff call other students, ensuring they were checked upon at least once across the year. It ensured that students were equipped with all the tools provided by the University and Union to have a healthier, happier, and more fulfilling student experience. I am pleased to announce this work resulted in our winning a Silver Heist Award.  

GSU has also engaged with the University strategy refresh, embedding student experience and co-creation at the heart of its work. We have celebrated our community through our Welcome activities, hosting Black, LGBTQ+, Disability, and Women’s History Months, the Activities Awards, Student-Led Teaching Awards, and most recently, the incredible commitment to the development of a new Global Greenwich Centre to support International Students orientation and experience. We will continue to work on the issues that matter most to our members during their time at the University of Greenwich.  

The University’s NSS scores overall look promising despite what was a tough year and of this, we are proud. 

Still, we recognise there is always the potential for improvement and growth and your GSU Officer team are committed to realising this potential in collaboration with the University.

Seeing the University ahead of the sector on issues such as access to learning facilities and library services is a credit to the teams who have mobilised these facilities over the last few years. 

Furthermore, it is great to see the University continue to have fantastic scores on their placement-based metrics - another notable win among others! 

Question 26 of the NSS does indeed have its shortcomings and should be taken as merely a single tool of interpretation by the Union to shape our work. However, as an annual, cross-nation process, it is useful to see the trends of growth within the Union as well as other institutions like GSU. We can learn a lot from the voice of students, and we support the use of this data to help refine and guide future practices. 

Finally, I want to say on behalf of the new Officer Team and the Students’ Union, we are focused on continuing to ensure student voice is at the heart of the decisions taken at the University of Greenwich and ensuring the most marginalised students voices are represented and heard. We look forward to having these values inform our work this year and making certain we do everything in our power to ensure an empowering, pleasant student experience for all students at the University of Greenwich.  

 
Aatika Ayoub 
GSU President