Edinburgh University plans 'significant changes' to courses and timetables after student survey blow

Edinburgh University is planning an overhaul of its courses and timetables after admitting staff and students are “not happy”.

Bosses at the ancient institution have announced “significant changes” will be made to culture, policy, planning, process, organisational design and use of space.

The move has emerged just days after The Scotsman revealed that Edinburgh University and Glasgow University were promising action to respond to disappointing scores in the latest National Student Survey for 2024.

Edinburgh University Picture: Lisa Ferguson | NW

Edinburgh University’s overall course satisfaction rate among students was found to be 70.4 per cent, which was the lowest in Scotland, aside from the Glasgow School of Art.

It compared to an 88 per cent satisfaction rate at St Andrews University, 85.5 per cent at Aberdeen University, 83.7 per cent at Strathclyde University and 82.4 per cent at Dundee University.

In a memo to staff, University of Edinburgh management said a new project to improve the teaching timetabling and course selection for students had been approved by the executive.

The memo said: “Many students tell us they often have last-minute changes to their timetable, which makes it difficult to plan their life around their studies.

“They have also told us they are presented with a wide range of course choices, including courses that aren’t in practice available to them, leaving them disappointed when expectations set can’t be met.”

It added: “Our staff tell us that they are not happy with their experience of timetabling and course selection, as well as managing the dissatisfaction with students. This includes the staff that work directly to administer these activities.

“The outcomes of this project will be to provide staff with a stable and accurate timetable to be able to plan their other university commitments.

“We will achieve improved pro-active and effective working practices for staff in teaching administration, including consolidated and simpler processes, improved planning and reduction in urgent/complex resolutions to queries.”

It is understood staff and students have long been frustrated with the way courses are structed and timetabled, with a shortage of teaching rooms and classes not always being within reasonable walking distance from each other.

Course choices also have to be handled by an administrator, which one staff member described as “administratively wasteful”.

The university said there would be “wide engagement and consultation with staff and students” on the proposed changes from next month.

Sophia Woodman, president of the UCU union branch at Edinburgh University, said: “Our members certainly welcome improvements to UoE's often clunky and unresponsive systems for timetabling and course enrolment.

“However, we are concerned that rather than consulting at an early stage on what is needed to address these problems, management appears to have made a plan and is consulting on these plans once they are already in place.

“We have seen so many instances of disastrous 'change management' at UoE in recent years, with People & Money being the most notable example, resulting in huge costs to the institution and an incredible drain on staff time, increasing already unsustainable workloads.

“After all these experiences, and clear findings from staff surveys that staff do not feel they are listened to, management needs to learn to listen to staff in developing proposals for change.”

The National Student Survey, published in July, is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Just under 346,000 final-year students responded across the UK this year, including more than 3,000 students from Edinburgh University.

A University of Edinburgh spokesperson said: “We want our students to have the best experience possible during their studies. We have put considerable effort into enhancing our student experience over the last few years, including introducing a new support model to provide students with more dedicated pastoral and academic guidance. We are also in the process of making further improvements through a series of university-wide projects and workstreams.

“We know there is a lot more work to be done and we continue to listen to feedback to identify areas where we can deliver benefits to our community.”