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University of Chichester

NATIONAL
RANK

63.7%

FIRSTS
2:1s

89.8%

COMPLETION
RATE

Key Stats

n/a

TEACHING
QUALITY

19th

STUDENT
EXPERIENCE

102nd=

RESEARCH
QUALITY

95th

GRADUATE
PROSPECTS

Contact details

ADDRESS

College Lane, Chichester, PO19 6PE View on map >

Telephone

01243 816 002

help@chi.ac.uk

Website

www.chi.ac.uk

Open days

October 4, 11 and 30

University Profile

Chichester is aiming to be internationally recognised as a “beacon of good practice for high quality, student-centred higher education” by 2020. Its satisfaction ratings in the annual National Student Survey (NSS) consistently suggest that many of its students think it has already achieved this lofty aim. Combined with a dropout rate, which at 6.1% is roughly half the expected (benchmark) level, it is clear students like what they find at this small coastal university.

Chichester was winner of our Best University for Student Retention award in 2013 and missed out on retaining the title by a whisker this year, returning the second best performance of any institution in our guide when comparing dropout rate to benchmark.

Its record in the NSS and its low dropout/high completion rate propel Chichester comfortably into the middle reaches of our league table. The smallest of the nine universities created in 2005 – still with barely 4,000 full-time undergraduates – it has recruited strongly since shedding its college title and is reinvesting the surplus this has produced in improved facilities.

Fee income will rise in September 2015 when for the

first time the university will levy the maximum £9,000 tuition fee, although once the package of financial support on offer is taken into account, Chichester maintains that the average tuition fee cost will still be among the lowest in the country at £7,800 per year.

The university traces its history back to 1839, when the college that subsequently bore his name was founded in memory of William Otter, the education-minded Bishop of Chichester. It became a teacher training college for women, and teacher trainees still account for two-thirds of the places, and eventually merged with the nearby Bognor Regis College of Education.

The Chichester campus – now the larger of two – continues to carry the Bishop Otter name, signifying a continuing link with the Church of England. The refurbishment of the chapel and landscaping of its surrounds was one of the main capital projects of 2013. Both campuses have seen improvements recently, carried out in the summer to minimise the inconvenience to students.

Student City

Jodie Hope, students’ union president

Developments in Bognor Regis that cost £13m are now near to completion. The biggest project has been to transform the Dome into a business and research centre and creating a new learning resources centre.

Since May 2012, Chichester has been implementing the second phase of its investment plan, which aims to bring facilities on the Bishop Otter campus up to the same standard as those in Bognor Regis. The learning resources centre has been overhauled to provide easier access to books, online resources, media and computer facilities, as well as adding a coffee shop.

The old library on the Bognor Regis campus has been converted into a 150-seater lecture theatre and extra teaching space. The former student support services building is being used as business incubator units for local firms. The Alexandra Theatre, in Bognor, is used as a base for the musical theatre programme and there are links, too, with the Chichester Festival Theatre. The Mathematics Centre has an international reputation, working with over 30 countries as well as teaching the university’s own students. It has become a focal point for curriculum development in Britain and elsewhere.

The university has two faculties, each of which operates on both sites. One covers business, teacher training and IT; the other the arts, history, media, sport and social sciences. The portfolio of some 300 courses ranges from adventure education to humanistic counselling, fine art and the psychology of sport and exercise.

The PE teacher training course is one of the largest in the country – recently training one in five PE teachers in England – and is highly rated by Ofsted.

Sport was the only area in which the university registered any world-leading work in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, but history and drama, dance and performing arts also produced good results.

About one in six of the 5,000 students are 21 or over on entry, but little more than a third come from working-class homes, which is below average for the university’s courses and entry grades. The university runs summer taster sessions and has a series of partnerships with schools in the Channel Islands and Sussex to encourage a broader intake. Courses are also run in collaboration with Isle of Wight College.

Both of the university’s campuses are within ten minutes’ walk of the sea and the residential places are roughly equally divided between them, enabling Chichester to guarantee accommodation to anyone making the university a firm choice before the January Ucas deadline. There is a university bus service linking the two and students’ union bars at each.

Sports facilities are good. A sports dome has been added to the existing tennis courts to provide an all-weather, multi-sport facility, and a new running track has been installed.

The small cathedral city of Chichester is best known as a yachting venue and Bognor is said to have the longest stretch of coastline in the south where all types of water sports are available. Both offer a good supply of private housing and some student-oriented bars. Much of the surrounding countryside has been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.

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PERFORMANCE