CRICOS Experts / The sector

What good practice looks like from the student's side

A short list, and almost all of it is administrative.

Students describe good experiences in remarkably practical terms. They were told the truth before they came. Somebody answered when they had a problem. They understood what would happen if they failed a unit, before it happened. The fees were what they had been told. When they needed a change, somebody explained the consequences.

None of that is about teaching quality, which students generally assume and rarely comment on. It is about whether the administration treated them as a person with a lot at stake, which is exactly what they are.

The corollary for a provider is that the functions determining student experience are the ones usually treated as back office and resourced accordingly. Admissions, student administration and compliance are where the experience is actually delivered in this sector.

It is also worth saying that the vast majority of students have entirely ordinary experiences and go on to do what they came to do. The care described here is not because the sector is troubled but because the consequences of ordinary administrative error are unusually severe.

It is also worth asking students what they would tell a friend considering the same decision. It produces a more honest answer than a satisfaction question, because it shifts the frame from evaluating a service they are still receiving to advising somebody they care about.