Student belonging is a hot topic. No doubt you and your teams have, at some point this academic year, sat down to discuss how your institution can boost student attendance, enhance learner engagement and instil a sense of attachment to your university or college in everyone enrolled on your HE programmes.
But it’s tough, isn’t it? Just as you settle on an agreed plan to advance and embed student belonging something new hits, whether it’s the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, or international recruitment shifts.
In almost every discussion on student belonging I have been privy to there has been a question raised about student attendance and whether attendance equates to belonging. I have come to recognise that the answer to this question matters less than the reality of the context we find ourselves in.
The necessity of demonstrating compliance with regulation – particularly UKVI – can mean that tracking bums on seats supersedes dialogue about the pedagogic value-added of the classroom.
