The survey is designed to assess undergraduate students' opinions of the quality of their degree programmes, with seven different scores published including an "overall satisfaction" mark.
[5] NSS is conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Office for Students and the UK higher education funding bodies.
[1] When launched in 2005, the NSS covered all final year undergraduate degree students in publicly funded universities (higher education institutes) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
[10] As such, they are often incorporated into League tables of British universities alongside other measures such as entry standards, student:staff ratio, dropout rate etc.
In a statement, the SU argued that 'the NSS ranks universities against each other, creating a competitive market of education and turning students into passive consumers.
This is damaging to the quality of education because it encourages universities to stream money into marketing or other quick fixes to drive up student satisfaction on paper.'
[23] Following an investigation of the allegations, the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) ordered that Kingston University's Department of Psychology be removed from the 2008-09 League Tables.
"[25] Following the announcement of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), including proposals to use NSS scores as a core metric, numerous students' unions, including the National Union of Students, voted to conduct a boycott of the NSS to display their opposition to the TEF and marketisation of higher education more generally.