Complaints watchdog says university students have not been ‘academically disadvantaged’ by Covid-19 lockdown

The UK university complaints watchdog, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, has published details of some of the complaints it has received from students about their experiences during the Covid-19 lockdown.

In its report, the OIA revealed it had generally not recommended tuition fee refunds. The document contains ten case summaries of complaints it had received, with compensation recommended in only one.

It comes as Jisc published a report into the digital experiences of university teaching staff during 2020.

Nearly half — 48% — of staff responded to the Jisc survey before the lockdown. However, it found that nearly eight in ten university teaching staff said they felt motivated to use technology in teaching, though just 29% felt their institution provides the digital skills guidance needed for their jobs.

Just 14% said they had time to explore new digital tools and approaches, and 12% felt they had the chance to assess their digital know-how, for example, for career planning.

The cancellation of face-to-face teaching in universities in March sparked mass calls for tuition fund refunds. Further calls for rebates have come in recent weeks following major Covid-19 outbreaks at a number of universities, which forced tens of thousands of students to go into self-isolation.

In its report, the OIA said it has so far received “a little under 200 complaints” related to Covid, as students had to first raise a complaint through their university’s internal procedures.

Felicity Mitchell, the OIA’s independent adjudicator, said students had not been “directly academically disadvantaged because of the disruption”.

“The pandemic has been very challenging for everybody,” she said. “We recognise that many people have been working incredibly hard to minimise disruption and to support students, and that students and those who support them have faced very real difficulties. We are acutely aware that there are limits to what is reasonable or even possible in this context. But students must still be treated fairly.

“It is to providers’ credit that we have not so far seen any cases where the student has been directly academically disadvantaged because of the disruption, but it is also important that providers deliver what was promised or something broadly equivalent to it. Providers have done better in some cases than in others at finding ways to make up for the learning students missed out on.”

The only case where a fees refund was recommended related to an international student who had four weeks of teaching and a final project cancelled for a module. The OIA recommended that the university should pay the student just over £1,000.

“We concluded that the provider had not taken sufficient steps in relation to this module to mitigate the disruption to the student’s learning experience or to ensure that the delivery of the module was broadly equivalent to its usual arrangements,” the watchdog said.

The OIA launched a consultation to create a new right to bring large group complaints earlier this month, which would make it possible for students to bring mass claims for Covid compensation.

At least 4,000 students have joined a complaint chain organised by the National Union of Students calling for tuition fee refunds.