Report: Factors Influencing Higher Education Quality at CSU

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of factors impacting the quality of higher education, specifically focusing on Charles Sturt University. It delves into various aspects, including student-to-staff ratios, classroom sizes, and the impact of high staff turnover. The report highlights issues such as ...Read More

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Introduction
In today’s world of education, it is essential for the universities to provide the quality
education to their students. It is true that students who all are coming from outside always
demand the variety of programs. Moreover, the higher education sector is quite significant in
the area of education and plays the leading role in everyone’s life. High education usually
comprises of the advanced system in education such as effective teaching faculty, advanced
learning activities as well as variety of programs. It also helps in developing the knowledge
as well as skills of students on larger basis. Across the world, the universities are recognised
as the place for higher learning that tends to include the capabilities, knowledge as well as
growth of the students. Higher education also includes the several stages of education that
includes the advanced training of student for their effective knowledge. In the report,
discussion is carried on the factors that affect the quality of education.
Factors affecting quality of higher education in Charles Sturt
University
The role of education is important in the aspect of socialisation of the children and young
adults throughout the phase of life. Education also shapes their cultural values and norms
within a society to acquire the qualities to lead their lives to ensure their acceptance to the
individuals or group. Therefore, a number of factors influence the quality of education in the
Charles Sturt University of Australia (Gürkut & Nat, 2017).
Student to staff ratios: The aspect of SSR, or student staff ratio is found to be the result of
funding levels, institutions and central services. Low SSR offer the potential or ability to
arrange the educational practices to enhance the educational outcomes. In Charles, the ratio
of the students has been lowered to 16 to 18 to every one teaching staff or professor, for
about the last 20 years. Lack of close contact or sound interaction with the teachers or
professors has been found a major problem in the Charles University (Bettinger, Doss, Loeb,
Rogers, & Taylor, 2017). There are times students do not able to contact with their teachers
and this tend to affect their productivity at the end. Therefore, in order to improve the quality

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of education, it is quite essential to improve the communication between teachers as well as
students (Nelson, Palonsky & McCarthy, 2017).
Secondly, the university also lag behind in providing the quality feedback to their students
through rating on their assignments. This acts as other major factor indicating ineffective
system or low quality of education. This affects the education quality in the university and
further reduces the admission rate of the students in the university. This gave rise to the lack
of the teaching qualifications of the teachers or professors in the university. Therefore, it is
another major problem or factor affecting the education quality in the university (Cooper,
Baglin & Strathdee, 2017).
Classroom size and high staff turnover: It acts as one of the vital factor in the process of
learning and acquiring knowledge in the universities in Australia. It has been found that
more the number of students, in a class less will be the student achievement. Students feel
less confident about asking questions in their classrooms, due to many students in the
university. Professor in Charles teach their students about the concepts of their study course
or matter, but it does not result into positive outcomes due to class size (Grainger, Adie &
Weir, 2016). therefore, it can be stated that large size classes affect the performance of the
students, due to ineffective learning and further impacts their engagement or interaction with
others. Average or a good number of students in these universities is assumed to range
between 15 and 25 students, and above this, it affects the quality of education (Garwood,
Vernon-Feagans & Family Life Project Key Investigators, 2017). There are institutions who
give their proper emphasis on the career paths. They are also required to provide the several
programs which in turn need the large sizes of class. This is the element that Charles fails in
providing and thereby affecting its quality education. Technology is one such factor that put
impacts on the education. Therefore, the use of technology across the university also gains
the huge attention of students from different universities.
In addition to this, high staff turnover is also one such issue that tends to decrease the quality
of education. In such a situation, students also find study as a burden, which in turn decrease
their capability to learn effectively. Overburden students likely to take more stress on their
head, take more off during college hours, as well as suffer from several other problems.
Therefore, it is quite essential to have the good staff that will spend long time in university. In

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addition to this, university also has only sufficient teachers in the particular fields. From
those, the average age of teacher workforce is older. From the estimation, it is found that
around 50 per cent of the professors will leave the university in next ten years. It is obvious
that this will create the problem in the university. Due to this, the number of new teacher
entering the university will also fall short. Several teachers are also leaving the university due
to poor resources, poor remuneration, and lack of professional standing in the university.
Discrimination and favouritism amongst students
The aspect of gender discrimination and favouritism amongst the students in the classrooms
by their professors constitutes a negative point of the education in Charles. These form a part
of the education culture and values in the university, affecting the quality of education.
These factors or issues hinder the progress of the student in the universities, which in turn
indicates the ineffectiveness (Wilkins & Huisman, 2015).
Women or girls in their higher education are given less number of opportunities, which
affects their learning in the environment. Due to this, Charles face problem in terms of
students leaving the university in a short period (Silver, 2016). Favouritism is also a major
cultural factor, that creates biasness amongst the students in a classroom, and this impacts the
learning ability. It has been found that the educational environment is the sum of the
resources and facilities provided by the organisation, here university to their students.
Therefore, the university should assure equal and positive opportunities to every student to
ensure the development of each student to their full potential. This will further enhance the
quality of education provided in the university. It is true that there are times students have to
face the issue of favouritism due to any reason (Mayhew et al, 2016).
Non-availability of financial resources: In Charles university students does not get access to
facilities or education due to insufficient finance or financial resources in the country. It
further creates difficulty for them to pay their tuition fee, and good food to eat. This leads to
a negative impact on their health and mind, and they are engaged into wrong activities. They
show their involvement into illegal or criminal activities resulting into overall destruction of
the country’s economy. The lack of finance is also found through government, which is a
major factor affecting the quality of education. Therefore, government must support these
universities in the country to ensure effective education facilities or services to the students to
assure their growth in the future. The availability of funds is not perceived from the aspect

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of students, rather it is more important for the functioning of the university. It is been found
that two years ago, the Minister of Education has cut the $2.2 billion in the funding of
university. This tends to directly put the pressure on universities into the capping student
places. Due to this, University also faced the issues of financial dilemmas that ensure the
decline in the academic reputation of the country as well. In this way, universities, colleges,
as well as Australian higher Education System has faced the challenges (Englund, Olofsson
& Price, 2017).
Rote learning: It is considered as one of the significant and commonly observed phenomenon
or practice in the Australian universities. The technique of rote learning has been emphasized
by the universities, to develop the memorisation of the students in the short-term. This is
used in many other universities, amongst the students in higher standards, to learn their
course material. Rote learning has number of disadvantages, leading to major impact on
quality of education. Children or adults during their college years may feel disinterested in
their studies due to monotonous repetition of their study matter. Real-life application of the
learned concepts and studies is often ignored in the university (Akareem & Hossain, 2016).
This can be further improved by focusing on the PC enabled learning, which acts a solution
to the rote learning in the university. The memorisation of the subject matter or concepts is
for the short term only, thus acts the waste of time and effort of the students. It does not
involve or cater to the problem-solving element in high education, in the Charles University.
Therefore, students in the university lack essential or effective critical skills to grow in order
to succeed in the future. It has been found that the teachers or professors in the university
focus or stresses upon enabling students to gain concepts through the method of rote
learning. This shows the lack of effective education services by the Australian university, and
impacting the student achievement and growth in the future (Norton, 2018). It is true that
proper infrastructure is also required in order to improve the quality of higher education.
Sometimes, due to lack of accommodation students do not get the proper accommodation
facility. Increment in prices of property and the lack of financial resources creates the major
problem in the Charles University. It is true that if students will not have the effective and
proper place to live, they will become frustrate very soon and it will lead to decrease their
productivity. There are times students get frustrate and take too much burden on their hand if
they do not the proper facilities of accommodation.

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Activity Time period Respective
department or team
responsible for the
activity (Gürkut &
Nat, 2017).
Criteria to judge
success
Effective training for
students who are
from other countries
4 or 5 months Human resource
department or
directors
In order to judge the
criteria, survey will
be conducted in order
to find out the
reviews of students.
Any improvement in
their performance
will prove the
success of students.
Improvement in the
online learning of the
students
6 to 8 months Teachers In order to judge the
success in this area,
performance
indicator will be
prepared in order to
check the success of
students after starting
more online
programs.
Several kind of
programs for the
improvement of
knowledge
4 to 5 months Educational
department
In order to judge the
success in this field,
several kind of
monthly or quarterly
test will be taken and
improvement in
students will be
checked.
Time to time
interaction between
5 to 6 months Human resource
department
In order to judge the
success in this

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students and teachers criteria, students
reviews can be taken
regarding the
improvement in
communication
between teachers.
Media tools Amount
Social Media Marketing
Twitter
Facebook
Total
$4000
$4000
$8000
E-mail Marketing $5500
Other Online campaigns $4,000
Ada on Google $3000
Traditional media
Hoardings
Television
Amount
$80000
$50000
$13,000
Promotional plan for 1 year (end of 2020)
Communication objective: It is true that university is required to properly communicate with
the students so that they come to know about the different services of university. In order to
communicate with those students, assistance of several channel can be taken such as
university websites, social media advertisement, newspapers, direct mail, social media
advertisement, or magazines. The objective besides using this communication channel is to
communicate the concerned parties regarding the facilities or services that this university
provides (Manca & Ranieri, 2016).
Criteria to measure the success: Various criteria’s can be used to measure the success. for
example- if the improvement in knowledge of students is required to judge, then a survey can

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be conducted where students will provide their reviews regarding the accommodation facility.
In addition to this, change management plan can also be implemented where it will become
easy to find out the changes that were expected. In addition to this, group discussion can also
be taken where student will share their reviews regarding the changes that helped them in
their education (Bunce, Baird & Jones, 2017).
Promotion activities: in this stage, university will allocate the resources to the several
elements such as advertising, publicity, as well as sales promotion. This will help in aware
the students regarding university promotional campaign (Bunce, Baird & Jones, 2017). For
the promotional activity, a team will sit together in order to break down the allocations as
well as determine the affordability (Dani, Singhai & Hyde, 2018).
Budget and timeline: In order to prepare the effective promotional plan, specific timeline is
essential so that university will be effectively able to achieve the target in definite time. The
definite time also helps in achieving the work on definite time. Besides this, estimated budget
will help in minimising the cost as well as allocation will be appropriate. Proper allocation of
fund will help in properly managing the resources effectively as well (Senaratne &
Samarasinghe, 2019).

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Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be concluded that several factors affect
the quality of education of they are not included in the education of students. Several factors
are responsible for the better quality of education for the students. Therefore, maintaining the
quality of higher education can be done by taking several corrective measures.

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References
Bettinger, E., Doss, C., Loeb, S., Rogers, A., & Taylor, E. (2017). The effects of class size in
online college courses: Experimental evidence. Economics of Education Review, 58,
68-85.
Bunce, L., Baird, A., & Jones, S. E. (2017). The student-as-consumer approach in higher
education and its effects on academic performance. Studies in Higher
Education, 42(11), 1958-1978.
Dani, S., Singhai, M., & Hyde, A. M. (2018). Factors Affecting Student's Perception of
Online Learning: an Empirical Analysis. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(2).
Englund, C., Olofsson, A. D., & Price, L. (2017). Teaching with technology in higher
education: understanding conceptual change and development in practice. Higher
Education Research & Development, 36(1), 73-87.
Garwood, J. D., Vernon-Feagans, L., & Family Life Project Key Investigators. (2017).
Classroom management affects literacy development of students with emotional and
behavioral disorders. Exceptional Children, 83(2), 123-142.
Grainger, P., Adie, L., & Weir, K. (2016). Quality assurance of assessment and moderation
discourses involving sessional staff. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 41(4), 548-559.
Gürkut, C., & Nat, M. (2017). Important Factors Affecting Student Information System
Quality and Satisfaction. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology
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Gürkut, C., & Nat, M. (2017). Important Factors Affecting Student Information System
Quality and Satisfaction. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology
Education, 14(3), 923-930.
Mayhew, M. J., Pascarella, E. T., Bowman, N. A., Rockenbach, A. N., Seifert, T. A.,
Terenzini, P. T., & Wolniak, G. C. (2016). How college affects students: 21st century
evidence that higher education works (Vol. 3). John Wiley & Sons.

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Nelson, J. L., Palonsky, S. B., & McCarthy, M. R. (2017). Critical issues in education:
Dialogues and dialectics. Waveland Press.
Porter, W. W., & Graham, C. R. (2016). Institutional drivers and barriers to faculty adoption
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References
Senaratne, S. I., & Samarasinghe, S. M. (2019). Factors Affecting the Intention to Adopt M-
Learning. International Business Research, 12(2), 150-164.
Silver, S. A., McQuillan, R., Harel, Z., Weizman, A. V., Thomas, A., Nesrallah, G., ... &
Chertow, G. M. (2016). How to sustain change and support continuous quality
improvement. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 11(5), 916-924.