Student-to-staff ratios misleading, says UCU

The method used to calculate the ratio of staff to students at UK universities is flawed, a report by the University and College Union has claimed. The Higher Education Statistics Agency includes staff that do both research and teaching in its calculations without correcting for the amount of time spent on activities other than teaching. The report says that universities with a low student-to-staff ratio tend to be those in which academics spend a high proportion of time on research, which gives an inaccurate impression about the availability of teachers.