Throughout my years of involvement in Student Government, I have always been disturbed by the lack of depth discussions of educational quality have had. Oftentimes, experts chase after a set of inputs that equal a quality education, as if it were a mathematical problem.
As a representative of over 19,000 undergraduate students, I can tell you concretely that quality is not a mathematical, or even a logical problem at our universities. Firstly, students are more satisfied than dissatisfied with their education. Most Ontario schools score high enough on NSSE to indicate that our schools are not “low-quality”. However, after being a McMaster undergraduate for four years now, I can tell you that something doesn’t feel right about our university experience.
Secondly, there are many factors that go into a quality education. From the teaching ability of one’s instructors, to the state of campus infrastructure, to the extracurricular experience available, the student perception of the overall “quality of education” is affected by a many factors. Some of these factors aren’t even measurable.
Lastly, quality means different things to different stakeholder groups. For students, it means satisfaction with the educational experience. For faculty, it means having the resources to teach effectively. For administrators, it can mean where the institution stands in relation to others.
In order to at least begin to tackle the entirety of the issue, we need to move past trying to define quality, and realize what we are trying to achieve with a “quality education”. I truly believe that outcome is the creation of successful students.
That’s why this year; we’ve spent a great deal of time and effort producing a policy paper on Student Success. The paper seeks to move past the traditional discussions that have bogged down the quality debate. We don’t talk about student-faculty ratios, system overhaul, or differentiation of university missions.
Instead, we are articulating that smaller investments into student services and instructional support programs have the potential to make huge impacts in the student experience. For those students most in need of academic support, robust early-warning systems have the potential to make the difference between dropping out and graduating.
By taking a more holistic and student-centred approach to the quality debate, we hope to see provincial action make a more clear and defining impact on the educational experience. We hope to move past trying to understand the problem, to trying to find solutions for students.
-Chris Martin
Vice President Education
McMaster Students Union
