University of Notre Dame Australia - Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance

The University undergoes quality audits every five years by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), like all Australian higher education providers. The last audit was conducted in 2008 and it resulted in a number of commendations and recommendations. Commendations included:

• AUQA commends Notre Dame on the multifaceted admissions process that places importance on the fit between the student and the institution.
• AUQA commends Notre Dame on the strong commitment and dedication of its academic staff generally to be excellent teachers and to provide pastoral care and support to students

Notre Dame has one of Australia's highest graduate ratings for overall student satisfaction and teaching quality. This was also noted in the AUQA report.

In terms of recommendations, the panel raised concerns about Notre Dame's ability to establish a research culture consistent with the Commonwealth government's requirements for universities:

"Notre Dame managers and staff emphasise that during the years of establishing Notre Dame as a private university in Australia, most of the effort went into developing and enhancing teaching and learning and the pastoral care of students. This concentrated effort throughout the institution left little opportunity to develop a research culture throughout the University so that associated scholarly activities are currently not highly visible. AUQA has identified this as an issue of potential future concern in regard to the National Protocols for Higher Education Approval Processes."

Although not specifically mentioned in the AUQA report, the University's financial position and its lack of resources to fund critical infrastructure such as libraries, IT and research support was of concern. In 2008, Notre Dame made an operating loss of $2.4m on revenues of $70m, and had loans and liabilities of more than $130m.

It also faces a new challenge in the form of union intervention in its activities, with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) logging claims for staff entitlements for the first time in 2009. Notre Dame is the only university in Australia that does not offer ongoing employment or increased superannuation entitlements. In June, 2012 the NTEU successfully intervened on behalf of casual members at the Sydney campus when they were told they would not receive extra payment for marking. This was in breach of the Staff Collective Agreement. The university's response to this was to offer payment for marking at a much lower rate than they had originally communicated to casual staff at the commencement of the semester. Only after heavy intervention by the NTEU did the university agree to pay what they had originally advised to casual staff.