University of Essex Online wins Global Student Satisfaction Award

A commitment to world-class online learning has led to University of Essex Online winning the best online classroom experience category at the Global Student Satisfaction Awards 2021.

The Global Student Satisfaction Awards celebrate the very best universities across the world and are the only student-powered global university awards that capture student feedback on their study experience. The Awards are delivered by Studyportals in collaboration with the British Council, IELTS and Unibuddy.

This year, 108,000 reviews were collected from students across 4,000 organisations around the world, to recognise the best universities for their excellence in 8 different categories:

• Overall satisfaction
• Student-teacher interaction
• Quality of student life
• Career development
• Student diversity
• Admission process
• Online classroom experience
• Covid-19 crisis management

University of Essex Online was nominated for the online classroom experience award for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and was up against Toronto School of Management from the Americas and La Trobe University from the Asia Pacific region.

Nicola Pittman, Managing Director of the University of Essex Online, said her team was incredibly proud to be recognised by students and alumni for offering an outstanding online classroom experience. Now more than 4,000 students study University of Essex Online degrees around the world.

She said: “Our state-of-the-art virtual learning environment contains teaching materials designed for online delivery from the very start. But we know that this isn’t all the online student experience is about. And I don’t think we’d have won this award without the outstanding support we provide to our students all the way through their degree.”

University of Essex Vice-Chancellor Professor Anthony Forster said: “Our range of University of Essex Online degree programmes are very popular and we now have the largest cohort studying programmes with us since we launched online degrees in 2007.

“In 2021 University of Essex Online achieved an incredible score of 95% for overall student satisfaction in the 2021 National Student Survey. This result places us at the top for overall student satisfaction when compared to UK universities. “To be recognised in the Global Student Satisfaction Awards 2021 for ‘Online Classroom Experience’ is a wonderful achievement and testament to the quality of our academics and pastoral support provided by our staff."

The Global Student Satisfaction Awards assess student satisfaction from the perspective of the students themselves. A total of 108,000 students cast their votes; 444 of the 4,000 universities named qualified for the award ceremony.

The Awards ceremony took place in Eindhoven in the Netherlands and featured keynote speeches from luminaries in international higher education. This included Dr Fransesc Pedró, Director of UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education, who spoke on reimagining the future of higher education mobility, and Professor Jan Peter Balkenende, the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, who shared his views on student experience.

If you want to find out more about University of Essex Online undergraduate and postgraduate courses, you can download the prospectus. Or if you already know you would like to study with us, you can apply online.