Sharp rise in degree result complaints
Hetty ter Haar
Wednesday April 9, 2008
Soaring numbers of students are making official complaints when they fail to achieve good degrees, according to the university watchdog.
Complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIAHE ) from students unhappy with the marks they receive in their finals have risen 25% in a year.
In 2007, applications rose to 734 from 586 the year before. Over a quarter (26%) were upheld to some extent, up from 19% in 2006.
Over a third of the complainants - 36% - were postgraduate students and 64% were over 25-years-old.
Most of the complaints - 65% - were to do with academic results but 11% were from students that had been disciplined, for example for plagiarism.
Students of subjects allied to medicine formed the largest group of complainants.
Compensation paid by universities also shot up to £173,000 in 2007.
The full figures will be outlined next Tuesday in the OIAHE's annual report to be presented at the OIA conference.
The conference will hear calls for universities to do more to cater for the new, older student population, which is more likely to be graduate and from overseas and less familiar with UK university life.
Universities will also be urged to settle complaints more quickly and informally, for example by setting up "campus ombudsmen" and having simpler complaints and appeals procedures.
Baroness Ruth Deech suggested that the increased number of complaints could be due in part to the growing population of mature, graduate and international students who are more likely to complain about the standard of education they receive at university.