First or fail: school leavers and class of 2011

Aaron Porter gives his verdict on who has had a good week (heading for a first) and who has had a bad week (heading for a fail).

Heading for a first: a satisfied class of 2011

It's been a tough year for higher education. But some good news came out this week, as results for the 2011 National Student Survey were published. A survey of final-year undergraduates, with 22 questions covering a range of learning and teaching issues, showed that satisfaction scores by students were higher than ever before. In a bleak climate of graduate unemployment, that is no mean achievement and is a real testament to some of the fantastic teaching that goes on in our higher education institutions.

Even some of the areas of greatest concern, particularly assessment and feedback, saw an increase in satisfaction to 68%, up from 66%. Overall satisfaction across the UK is 83%, up one percentage point from 2010. While this is all pretty impressive, it does raise two important questions: With unprecedented cuts about to bite, and tuition fees about to treble, will universities have any chance of maintaining student satisfaction? And is satisfaction with your higher education experience best measured months before your final exams, or should we now be looking at a more longitudinal measure where graduates are asked to evaluate how beneficial their experience was four or five years after graduating? I suspect, in different ways, those two questions will be up for debate over the coming months.

Heading for a fail: 2011 school leavers

In the same week record student satisfaction scores were published, we received grim data about the world that graduates and school leavers are entering. The Office for National Statistics confirmed that youth unemployment was rising yet again. Those unfortunately named Neets (Not in education, employment or training) stand at an eye-watering 20.2% of all 18-25-year-olds on the scrap heap. To make matters worse, it seems that options for school leavers are limited wherever they may look. For the poorest students in college and sixth form, support in the form of the Education Maintenance Allowance has been scrapped, and there are concerns about whether the pot of money left in bursary funds will be able to ensure that students from the poorest backgrounds have enough money to travel to college and buy books.

For those looking to enter higher education, it's similarly tough. Competition to get a university place is the toughest it's ever been. Entry to higher education has always been a competitive process, and that's as it should be. But because of an arbitrary cap on student numbers, there will be somewhere in the region of 250,000 qualified applicants missing out on a place.

At a time when youth unemployment is so high, the idea that qualified students who want to study are being turned away from our universities because government won't fund the places is a self-inflicted wound. Critics will argue that the budget deficit means that the government can't afford to create university places, but my response is blunt: it's more expensive to pay job seekers' allowance and other benefits to a qualified young adult than it is to send them to university for three years. So economically and socially this is completely regressive. It's time the government started considering the other side of the deficit reduction equation, namely growth. And there can be no better answer than investing in education, skills and training of our school leavers. Sadly George Osborne doesn't just seem miles away from coming up with the right answer, he appears to still be asking the wrong question.

Aaron Porter is an education consultant and freelance journalist. He was formerly president of the National Union of Students 2010-11 and He tweets at @AaronPorter

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