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The Student Strategic Advisory Committee (SSAC) helps ensure that student perspectives shape QAA's work and strategic direction.

Bringing together students, student representatives, and students' union and representative body staff from across higher and tertiary education, SSAC provides strategic advice and insight to the QAA Board.

Each year, the committee identifies the quality and standards issues in tertiary education that matter most to students. Members develop and lead projects focused on these priorities and, with support from QAA, produce outputs and resources that bring the student perspective to issues of importance across the sector.

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How SSAC operates


Members of SSAC have a range of opportunities to contribute to QAA's work, including participating in groups focused on key issues such as Generative AI, speaking at events, and leading discussions within QAA networks. The committee has influenced national student-centred projects, introduced student reviewers to QAA review teams, and helped shape QAA's strategy and the UK Quality Code.

SSAC begins each year with an in-person induction, where members are introduced to QAA, build connections with one another, and agree priorities for the year ahead. The committee then meets at least three times a year. Meetings are attended by QAA's Chief Executive, Chair of the Board and other Board members, and provide an opportunity to discuss key topics, review progress on priorities, and provide feedback on major sector developments, projects and guidance.


A valuable opportunity to collaborate with others, develop a deeper understanding of inclusive communication, and contribute to guidance that has real impact across higher education. I would definitely recommend getting involved, as it is a meaningful experience that helps you develop new skills while being part of work that is genuinely shaped by student voice.
Dr Anastasia Kennett, PhD Student and Associate Lecturer in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, University of Worcester, SSAC member 2024-26

 

Explore each priority and access the related projects, outputs and resources.

 


 

Explore each priority and access the related projects, outputs and resources.

 

 

In the aftermath of the cost-of-living crisis, and with increasing concerns about the marketisation of the HE sector, students are increasingly reporting value for money as key in choosing an institution and programme of study. As SSAC, we want to discuss and then feed into QAA Board discussions about what value for money means in the context of quality assurance with the aim of influencing the agency’s thinking and work in this space.



 

In response to sector trends (especially related to lower NSS results across HEIs in this category), as a committee we’re interested in discussing several things: first, how students are assessed on their understanding of their subject; second, how assessment is diversified to address different students' needs and preferences; third, what feedback should be to really help students improve. The outcomes of the discussions will then be fed back to the agency to shape sector best practice in this area.


Resources

 

Following discussion of this broad topic, student committee members identified a selection of practical resources they found particularly useful when advising peers on assessment and feedback.

 

Overarching sector guidance on assessment and feedback

Provider-specific guidance was highlighted as offering particular value for both students and advisers

 

As a committee, we would like to prioritise and promote the importance of accessible language used by institutions particularly around academic rules and regulations through our engagement with QAA and its Board. It is commonly reported by students that the language used by their institution is not easily understood. This, in turn, has consequences:
  • jargon and complex terms pose a barrier to effective communication to students; 
  • students might be less likely to follow and understand guidance; 
  • this might cause students to abstain from seeking support from their institution; 
  • where guidance is unclear/hard to understand, this could have repercussions on the successful outcome of study (guidance around the use of AI is a current example of this).

The main goal of this priority area is to raise awareness of the accessibility of language and impact on the learning and wider experiences for students and learners across the UK tertiary education sector.

 

To achieve this, we gathered and collated student and student representative feedback via a Padlet and drew upon our own experiences of navigating the often-complex language used across tertiary education.

 

In this document we present our initial findings along with recommendations for providers driven by the student perspective. All voices presented here are authentic and we have only amended quotes where spelling or grammatical corrections needed to be made or if we have picked out a key element in the quotes.