43rd Annual Report - Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in ...

PERFORMANCE INDICATORSEncouraging FeedbackAward holders’ views on their experience in the United Kingdom play an importantrole in determining our level of service. In the last four years, we have conductedanonymous surveys to establish their feelings about the scheme itself, their hostinstitutions and life in the United Kingdom generally. Although anonymity preventsour issuing reminders, the number of replies has increased this year withquestionnaires being received from almost 400 award holders.Overall impressions were once again very positive, and in most categories the resultswere similar to those of previous years. Some trends, however, are worth recording.The provision of advice by institutions was once again the least well regarded feature;however, the proportion of those rating this as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ did increase for thethird successive year – it now stands at 67%, compared with 56% in 1999. Conversely,the proportion rating this as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ dropped below 10% for the firsttime, to 8.6%.Other discernible trends include the steady improvement in access to computingfacilities – from 76% ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ in 1999 to 88% this year and the increasingproportion of respondents rating their overall academic experience as ‘good’ or‘excellent’, which reached 90% for the first time in 2002. The overall administrationResults of award-holders survey: combined ratings for ‘excellent’ and ‘good’1999-20021999%2000%2001%2002%Selection and placement procedures 85 88 86 84ACU’s Administration overall 90 96 95 93Standard of supervision/ teaching 84 87 85 83Access to Library 80 86 84 86Access to Computing Facilities 76 79 83 88Access to Laboratories 86 87 89 90Academic Facilities Overall 85 91 86 87Course of Study Overall 85 84Academic Experience Overall 87 89 89 90Institutions Provision of Advice 56 57 65 67Overall Experience of living in the UK 85 84 87 89of the scheme by theACU was onceagain the highestrated feature, with acomparable figure of93%.Living in theUnited KingdomAward holders’overall perception ofliving in the UnitedKingdom has improved marginally over the past two years, with the proportion ratingthe experience as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ increasing from 84% to 89% over that period.Only 1% found the experience less than ‘satisfactory’.Giving Feedback: Commonwealth Scholars givetheir views on a range of issues, at the 2002Welcome DayStudents were more divided over the adequacy of financial support. 69% found this tobe at least ‘fairly adequate’ – a slight decline from the 70% in 2001. Only 4% foundthe award to be ‘not at all adequate’. Interestingly, the level of satisfaction wasrelatively even between categories of award holder, with 73% of Fellows and taughtpostgraduates being at least fairly satisfied, despite the higher stipend levels in theformer categories. Research postgraduates, however, were less content, with anequivalent figure of 65%.Results of award-holders survey 2002Excellent Good Satisfactory Poor Very Poor No.% %% %%Selection and placement procedures 38.1 45.8 14 1.3 0.8 236ACU’s Administration overall 52.2 41.2 6.3 0.3 0 381Standard of supervision/ teaching 53.9 28.8 14.5 2.8 0 386Access to Library 44 41.7 12.4 1.6 0.3 386Access to Computing Facilities 50 37.6 9.8 2.6 0 386Access to Laboratories 49.4 40.6 8.8 1.3 0 160Academic Facilities Overall 41 45.6 12.4 1.0 0 388Course of study Overall 40.2 44 11.4 4.4 0 386Academic Experience Overall 41.1 48.7 8.9 1.3 0 384Institutions Provision of Advice 16 50.9 24.5 8.3 0.3 375Overall Experience of living in the UK 35.2 54 9.5 0.8 0.5 389Where possible, the Commission seeks to monitor living costs most closely associatedwith award holders. Of particular interest are rent levels, which our survey showedincreasing by 4.8% from the previous year, following a 3.7% rise in 2001. Average rentsnow stand at £343 for scholars and £421 for Fellows, although these figures concealconsiderable variation. Location, as might be expected, was a significant factor,although in many cases the ability to secure university accommodation was equallyimportant. Although the average Fellow’s rent was 23% higher than that of a scholar, itshould be remembered that the differential in stipend is 60%.CSC Annual Report page 17