Students give university ratings

Ministers are promising students an 'informed choice'

An annual survey of students's views on their universities will help future applicants to become "informed consumers", the government has said.

An experimental version of the National Student Survey, involving 15,000 students at 23 universities, shows most were happy with teaching.

The full NSS is intended to complement plans to raise annual tuition fees to a maximum of £3,000 from 2006.

The government also hopes it will reduce university drop-out rates.

'Quality assessment'

Higher Education Minister Alan Johnson said: "One of the biggest reasons for student drop-out has been students choosing the wrong course, one that does not suit them or their needs.

"The National Student Survey will give students better information to help them make informed choices about where and what to study at university.

"It will also enable them to look at the quality of the course alongside the tuition fees to be charged for it."

The survey proposal was included in last year's higher education white paper, which contained the controversial plan to allow universities to charge higher fees.

Students and recent graduates were asked to rate universities for quality across seven areas - teaching, feedback, assessment, support, available learning resources, the ability of the course to improve their skills and workload.

For most questions, a score of five was the best a university or course could achieve, while one was the lowest.

Average scores across 20 universities showed teaching quality in social studies, for example, ranged from 3.7 to 4.2.

The institutions that took part in the pilot survey did so on condition that their individual scores were not made public.

The UK university drop-out rate is already one of the world's lowest.