Higher education student experience

Higher education institutions work with the student body to prepare Student Charters, which set out the mutual expectations, rights and responsibilities of institutions and their students, with appropriate links to further information, designed to support the student’s learning experience. The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales published guidance on how higher education providers should develop student charters and these expectations are included in the Quality Assessment Framework for Wales.

HEFCW published guidance on good practice in funding of effective, democratic students’ unions, and student representation.

In 2022, HEFCW published a report by Advance HE, commissioned by HEFCW, on reviewing policy and practice in relation to supporting postgraduate students who teach.

In 2023, HEFCW published a report by Arad Research, undertaken on HEFCW’s behalf, on the wider experience of postgraduate research students.

The NSS is owned by Medr, the Office for Students (OfS), the Scottish Funding Council, and the Department of Economy in Northern Ireland, and managed by the OfS on behalf of all these organisations. Ipsos is the company that administers the survey, and CACI Ltd disseminates the outcomes to providers and institutions.

More information and NSS data is available on the Office for Students website.

All final year undergraduate students can complete the NSS. More information for students regarding the NSS can be found on the NSS website or students can ask their provider.

All Welsh regulated and funded providers of higher education are required to take part in the NSS and promote the survey to all eligible students. Medr funds participation in the NSS for Welsh providers.

The question set for NSS 2027 will be the same as NSS 2026. Providers can also choose optional questions that are not part of the public data shared.

In a drive to reduce burden on providers, the additions and removals process has been reviewed and updated for NSS 2027. The OfS guidance and the NSS 2027 set-up guide provided by Ipsos provide further details about this process.

Instructions on how to supply this information are included in the NSS 2027 set-up guide, issued to provider contacts by Ipsos. The guidance is also available on the Ipsos NSS extranet and includes information regarding survey administration, key responsibilities and dates.

• Arrangements and provider actions for the national student survey 2027
• OfS Guidance on NSS 2027 – for higher education providers and further education colleges in Wales that return student data to HESA
• Good Practice Guide 2027

Discover Uni is owned by Medr, the Office for Students, the Scottish Funding Council, and the Department of Economy in Northern Ireland. The Office for Students manages the administration of the website.

Discover Uni is a website for prospective students to use to compare undergraduate courses across the UK. It highlights data about the provider and course including NSS outcomes and Graduate Outcomes.

All providers of undergraduate higher education in Wales are required to upload data to Discover Uni. Some of this data for a College may be uploaded by a University depending on franchise arrangements.

HESA has published the timetable for the Discover Uni record 2026/27. If there are issues with meeting any deadlines please contact [email protected].