Supporting Irish higher education institutions to enhance student engagement is a core part of the work of the National Student Engagement Programme, recognising the need for institutional approaches towards embedding practices and policies that supports meaningful cultures of partnership between staff and students.

During 2016/17, the NStEP rolled-out an Institutional Analysis Workshop that was developed alongside sparqs (Student Partnerships in Quality Scotland) across the 5 institutions that participated in the pilot phase. In 2017/18 the Institutional Analysis Workshop was then rolled out, with some minor changes, across a number of new participating institutions. To date, NStEP has completed 16 of these workshops.

As part of the current NStEP Strategy, the programme can offer a number of options for institutional support and development. These are as follows:

• A workshop on the ‘Culture of Partnership’ in your institution. This workshop builds on the experiences of staff and students in the Institutional Analysis sessions, guiding participants through a series of detailed exercises that aims to allow reflection on good practices to date, challenges faced across the institution, and on the need for further strategic actions. NStEP supports institutions every step of the way, from workshop organisation, delivery, and follow-up planning and implementation.
• Bespoke workshops and exercises can be developed to support the effective integration of good student engagement practices within any area of interest to staff and students in an institution. This could include topics like student representation, student success, feedback loops, strategic planning, or support service enhancement to name a few.
• Ongoing support, advice and consultation is available at all times to participating institutions. We’re always here to help guide and inform staff and students in their efforts to embed meaningful student engagement in practice!

To enquire about any aspect of NStEP’s work on institutional development, please get in touch with the Programme Manager at nstep@usi.ie