Most people in Wales believe the nation’s universities make a valuable contribution to society, a new survey reveals.
The Welsh Attitudes to Universities 2011 survey shows:
- 82% of respondents believe universities make a valuable contribution to Welsh culture;
- 81% of respondents feel they should be proud of the high standard of education provided by Welsh universities;
- 60% agree that universities are much more open than they were a few years ago.
In addition, when asked about the economic contribution of universities in Wales, 73% felt the sector had a role to play in delivering a highly skilled workforce and by attracting inward investment.
The survey was conducted by Beaufort Research between 17th March and 2nd April 2011. As well as aiming to uncover attitudes among the public to universities, the all-Wales survey also investigated how far the public connect with universities and whether barriers exist to getting involved with higher education.
The study found that a larger proportion (33%) of those in the higher socio-economic groups attended events and they also attended more events (2.3 per year) compared to the lower groupings (20% and 1.8 per year). Cardiff University events were attended by the most people, attracting one third of all those who attended a university event in the last 12 months. The other universities in Wales each had between 10 and 15% of the total.
However, there was less awareness of events and attendance at events among people over 55. In this age group, 15% said they had not heard of any of the activities and less than one-fifth had attended any.
The main barriers to participating in university engagement activities were not enough time (22%), the university being too far or too difficult to get to (16%), lack of interest (12%) and not knowing what is going on (12%). These four reasons were the main barriers identified both by those who attended events and those who did not. However, 10% of those who did not attend an event in the last 12 months also said they felt that they were too old to engage with universities.
