Buckingham tops rankings for Teaching Quality for the third year running

22 September 2017

The University of Buckingham has come top for the third year running for teaching quality in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018.

Buckingham, the only independent university in the rankings came second to Oxford for having the lowest student-staff ratio. It also came fourth for student experience.

University of Buckingham Director of Admissions, James Seymour, said: “For the third year in a row Buckingham has come top in the UK for teaching quality in this influential ranking. Teaching excellence is at the heart of everything we do. Our small student / staff ratios mean that students have the best learning experience and enjoy their studies here – something which is also borne out by our position in the guide – fourth in the country for student experience.”

The University has been commended in the guide for bucking the trend in this year’s 4% downward spiral of university applications in “spectacular fashion”, with a 22% increase in demand for places. The guide also flags the growing demand for the two-year degrees, which Buckingham pioneered 41 years ago.

Sir Anthony Seldon, who joined Buckingham as vice-chancellor in 2015 after a career in independent schools, is praised for being a critic of the failure to do enough to safeguard mental health at the university level. The guide refers to Buckingham becoming Europe’s first “positive university” by using positive psychology to enable students and staff to be more resilient while studying.

There is also reference to the fact Buckingham’s UK and EU undergraduates pay a total of £24,888 for their two-year course – less than a conventional three-year degree in the state sector (£27,750), and saving a year’s living costs and enabling swifter entry to the labour market. The medical school is singled out as the UK’s first private not-for-profit medical school, which has seen a 30% increase in applications this year.

In 2016 Buckingham was awarded The Times and The Sunday Times University of the Year for Teaching Quality.

The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018 provides students and their parents with an invaluable first reference point on the path to finding a university place. It contains full profiles of all universities. The league table is made up of nine indicators including student satisfaction with teaching quality and their wider student experience, research quality, graduate prospects, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, student/staff ratios, service and facilities spend, and degree completion rates.