Engaging Students as Partners

By Tom Yates, Executive Director of Corporate Affairs, QAA, and Andy Smith, Quality & Standards Manager, QAA

Last summer QAA published the new edition of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, the first new iteration of the Code since 2018.

This month, we've published the first three collections of Advice and Guidance to accompany the 2024 Code. Like the Code itself, these documents were written in collaboration with experts from across our sector.

In the first of a series of brief guides exclusive to HE Professional, we highlight some takeaways from the new Advice and Guidance chapter focusing on 'Engaging students as partners'.

 Strategy and culture 

Partnership working offers an approach to student engagement within which students and staff fulfil mutually important roles in shaping the student experience. It recognises that students are experts in their own learning and are therefore key to successfully enhancing the quality of the student experience. 

As part of their strategic approach to student engagement, providers work with their student representative body (where there is one) and/or student voice channels to set mutual goals and desired outcomes from student engagement activity.  The provider and the student representative body have an agreed approach to student engagement that is championed and embodied by senior leaders across an institution and student representative body. This approach embeds a culture of partnership working with students across the breadth of the provider’s provision and support services. Students play an active role across decision-making committees, and student representative systems are connected across all levels and departments of the institution and student representative body. 

This strategic approach to student partnership is co-designed and implemented by students and staff across the provider and student representative body. Students will thus know how they can affect changes to the student experience and be confident that their voices are heard, acted upon and recognised. 

 Representation

Defining student engagement and representative activities will be undertaken in the context of individual providers through a collaborative approach to define the scope and desired outcomes that orientate students, staff, student representative bodies and other stakeholders towards a shared understanding of success.

Students play an active role in the monitoring and evaluation of engagement activities, including in the development of methods to measure progress, and communicate demonstrable enhancements of the student experience against the strategic objectives for student engagement. 

Transparent arrangements will make clear how student feedback is collected, analysed, evaluated, communicated and acted upon.  It is important to recognise that data sharing arrangements between student representative bodies (where applicable) and providers enable effective data sharing and partnership working in responding to collective feedback in a timely fashion. 

Mechanisms for the collective voice to be heard and responded to are agreed by all stakeholders. Mechanisms for collecting feedback might include student representation in decision-making processes, focus groups, surveys, monitoring mechanisms, including SSLCs, online fora, themes arising from concerns, complaints and appeals, and student panels.

 Effective engagement 

While working with students as partners is the preferred approach for engaging with students, it is recognised that not all students will want to or be able to engage in this way consistently (or at all). To be confident that effective engagement opportunities reach the full diversity of students, providers might consider a variety of engagement activities that offer different levels of commitment from students, engagement activities that reflect the breadth of provision and take account of modes of delivery, parity of opportunity for all students to engage in activities should they wish to, and the accessibility of opportunities for students with protected characteristics.

Providers and student representative bodies are advised to regularly monitor the participation of those who take part in engagement and representative activities. This will help to ensure that they are accessible to all students and represent the full diversity of the student population. It is acknowledged that some activities may necessarily target specific groups within the student population (such as mature or disabled students) but these, nevertheless, still require monitoring and evaluating.

Through the development of a culture of enabling, listening and acting on the student voice, providers can empower students to actively influence change. Communication is key to students understanding that their voice has been listened to. 

 Recognition

Mechanisms for recognition and celebration can acknowledge the contributions students have made through partnership working, and for the impact they have made to the enhancement of teaching and learning and the wider student experience for current and future students. Recognising and celebrating student contributions helps build a culture of collaborative working and promotes the importance of students in building a dynamic and inclusive learning community.

Recognising and supporting student contributions requires a tiered framework that enables students to engage at different levels of responsibility and impact. A well-structured approach ensures that all students, regardless of experience or background, can develop skills, contribute meaningfully, and be appropriately recognised for their efforts. It is important to consider the individual context when assessing contributions.

Recognition in student partnership should be meaningful, equitable and career-enhancing, ensuring that contributions are valued beyond a basic CV mention. Recognition can include tangible rewards, peer recognition and financial support, addressing both student motivation and barriers to engagement.

The value added includes the meaningful understanding of the transferability and wider skills development of student contributions at all engagement levels – for example, to enable purposeful conversations about the contributions students made with employers. A provider may wish to engage their employability/careers teams to ensure clear advice and direction is provided to students on the wider benefits of student engagement.

 Governance

Institutions can ensure that students have the necessary support and agency to shape governance meaningfully, while students are encouraged to embrace these roles with commitment and initiative. Together, this shared approach strengthens governance and enhancement practices, creating an inclusive, vibrant culture that extends beyond the formal curriculum.

Providers can actively promote, support and utilise student representation and engagement opportunities at all levels of decision-making, including governing bodies and senior committees at provider, faculty/school or department level. The level of representation will typically be decided in partnership between the provider, student body and the students’ representative body.

Students can face challenges overcoming power dynamics at governance or senior-level meetings and may feel that they lack the social and cultural capital seen in other board members. Providers are encouraged to appoint at least two student leaders at senior-level meetings to give a wider student perspective and enable them to draw confidence from each other.

Students who sit on governance committees will need to quickly understand the difference between the types of decision taken at board level (as opposed to management decisions made through participation in working groups, implementation committees, and so on). If this understanding is not achieved, it may result in frustration, or a lack of confidence in the governing body, hindering effective student engagement.

Student governors and committee members often will not have the same level of experience as other board members. Staff responsible for administering committees can set time aside to explain the papers to student governors and respond to any questions. The board or committee may also promote the support of a lay member who is a designated point of contact outside of meetings and can assist with the navigation of the social norms of the board.

External training courses might be considered such as that offered by sector bodies. In addition, training for student governors around engaging with senior-level committees may provide useful as part of the onboarding process.

In doing so, providers can ensure that support is in place to facilitate student engagement in strategic decision-making processes at the highest levels of the organisational structure.

By placing students at the centre of strategic thinking, and through creating a shared understanding of success, providers can make an ongoing commitment to working with students in partnership and fostering a culture of mutual respect, openness and sharing of information, and can benefit from the continued insight and views of students throughout their operations.