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A leading education expert in Wales has condemned as “bizarre and disgraceful” comments from the head of a Welsh university declaring that she is “proud” of her organisation, when it has come bottom of ALL similar institutions in the UK.
Professor Maria Hinfelaar, Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Wrexham University (WU), proclaimed: “We are enormously proud of our consistent high rankings relating to student satisfaction and how satisfied our students are with the quality of teaching that they receive.
“This is an excellent set of rankings across a range of our subject areas, and especially pleasing that they relate to student satisfaction as well as graduate prospects.”
However overall WU had come 130th in the Complete University Guide (CUG), with a score of just 321 out of 1000.
The next worst-performing was the University of Bedfordshire (UB) which had a score of 404.
A senior education specialist told The Eye: “These comments are bizarre and disgraceful. She seems to be seizing on one part of this league table, when overall Wrexham is the worst in Britain. She should be looking at that, and asking why!”.
The remarks by Professor Hinfelaar relate to a positive reaction in the CUG from students doing certain courses.
While overall the university was rated the worst in the UK, it was ranked first for student satisfaction in Nursing. The reactions of students on other courses were also highlighted. For example in sociology subjects – in which WU offers courses in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Law and Criminal Justice, as well as Health and Wellbeing – they were rated top for student satisfaction for the second year in succession. This is true as well for the foundation year diploma in Higher Education.
Even so saying “We are enormously proud…” seemed strange to critics in the context of what has happened.
Cambridge University (CU) came top in the league table – 129 places above WU.
As well as speaking of her pride, the professor stated: “This performance is telling of our fantastic university community and certainly reflects the hard work of colleagues, who ensure that students thrive and succeed in their studies, here at Wrexham.
Clearly there is more ‘hard work’ to be done if WU came rock bottom of all the universities in the UK…
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Another book, though, has not been published because it was to have included names.
