Newcastle, Sunderland regions’s top performers

Newcastle and Sunderland Universities have maintained their lead in the delivery of media and communications studies programmes, according to the National Student Survey released today.

While Newcastle fell short of its prized first place in 2008, dropping two and a half points to 97.5, it was even better news for Sunderland, whose overall score for the quality of its provision shot up from 69.5 to 75. This score is an aggregate of all the survey measurements, provided by the Guardian, for the overall student experience on media and communications courses.

Oxford increased its gap over Cambridge as the country’s leading university across all subjects. Bolton remains bottom.

Newcastle and Sunderland remain way ahead of the other HE providers in the North East. Newcastle came third overall for media and communication programmes, while Sunderland came well within the top half of the league table (32nd out of 74) with Northumbria (45th), Teesside (68th) and Cumbria (74th) all trailing behind.

Lecturer in Journalism at Sunderland University, Alex Lockwood said: “This is fantastic news for the university and is a reflection of the sustained growth and hard work of the people in the department at Sunderland. Not least the students, who have put a huge amount of effort into the university’s radio station, it’s digital magazine, and its research.”

Lockwood added: “And well done to Newcastle. After the season they’ve had, they needed some good news.”

More information can be found at Unistats.com