The University of Queensland’s “campus environment” and buildings took the top spot when more than 16,000 students in four countries were surveyed on the qualities of 123 English language colleges globally.
In the same survey, UQ’s Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education (ICTE) was ranked as a top-10 Australian English language college and performed strongly in the key areas of “learning” and “living”.
More than 10,600 Australian English language college students, including 566 ICTE-UQ students, and 5504 English language students in Canada, New Zealand and the USA, took part in the 2013 i-Graduate English Language Barometer survey.
ICTE-UQ director Ms Christine Bundesen said the survey was the most comprehensive of its kind.
“Students ranked their school in four key areas — learning, living, support and arrival — and were asked questions across more than 70 individual measures,” Ms Bundesen said.
In addition to achieving a top-10 Australian English language college ranking overall, ICTE-UQ achieved a top-10 Australian ranking in each of the four key survey areas and 49 top-ten Australian rankings, including more than 20 top-10 global rankings, in a broad range of individual survey measures.
Areas in which ICTE-UQ scored highest included lecturers’ and supervisors’ teaching ability, course organisation, the quality of lecture theatres and classrooms, class sizes, and the multicultural learning environment.
The institute also scored highly in measures including sporting and social facilities, and on whether students felt welcome, safe and secure.
“These results are a testament to ICTE-UQ’s high standard of teaching and the quality of its learning environment, and to the exceptional opportunities for English language students at UQ St Lucia to enjoy life beyond the classroom,” Ms Bundesen said.
In 2013 more than 2500 students and professionals from more than 40 countries studied English at ICTE-UQ.
ICTE-UQ has participated in the iGraduate ELB since the survey’s launch in 2011.
2013 is the first year that Australian results have been incorporated into Global Benchmark results.
Ms Bundesen said students' positive responses in the i-Graduate survey reinforced the UQ Advantage, the range of strengths, opportunities and benefits that students gain by studying at a university ranked in the world's top 100.
Contact: Frances Wickerson, ph +61 7 3346 8293, f.wickerson@icte.uq.edu.au
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