Complaints about uni courses at record level

COMPLAINTS about university courses were at the highest level on record last year, with some reporting technology issues during online exams.

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) received 2,763 complaints from students in 2021, an increase of 6% on 2020 levels.

In a new report, the OIA said “some students found that they weren’t getting the learning experiences that they reasonably expected” and that they had been affected by the “cumulative impact of the pandemic and industrial action”.

It also found that some students had struggled with technology, “especially in online timed exams”, with some finding it difficult to make the technology work at all, while for others poor typing skills had affected their performance.

The overall financial compensation awarded to students in 2021 was £1,304,379, “significantly higher than in previous years”.

The OIA said this was partly because the impact of the pandemic made it difficult to come up with practical solutions to complaints. The highest single amount of compensation was just over £68,000, while 63 students received more than £5,000.

The proportion of complaints that related partly to the pandemic had risen since 2020, accounting for 37% of complaints received, compared with 12% in 2020.

Across English and Welsh universities, 45% of complaints in 2021 related to “service issues” such as teaching or course delivery, while 29% related to academic appeals, a slight fall from 33% in 2020.

In total, 27% of complaints were seen as “justified”. In one instance, students in the second year of a practical arts MA complained about their programme and how it had been advertised, as their practical modules were suspended during the pandemic. The OIA recommended that the students be refunded 50% of the course fees and offered a further £6,250 for the inconvenience they had suffered.