Students are cramming into university tutorials and labs as overworked academics confront a class size "crisis".
A national survey of 4421 university staff conducted in early 2025 by the National Tertiary Education Union found class sizes have skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The major report, released on Wednesday, showed three out of five university staff surveyed (62 per cent) reported tutorial and lab sizes had grown since 2019, with 35 per cent describing the change as significant.
Staff indicated the share of tutorials with 30 or more students had doubled from 27 per cent to 54 per cent.
At the same time, the proportion with 10 to 19 students - considered the ideal range by teaching staff - more than halved from 21 per cent to just 9 per cent.
