Why not go to court straightaway?
Hetty ter Haar
Someone recently read our file and asked why we, Kristina Maki and I,
had not gone to court straightaway.
That is what we should have done and, yes, hindsight is a great thing.
We should have presented our case as follows: "Here are the course
descriptions, and all we had was Literary Theory with no reference
whatsoever to Africa. An obvious case of misrepresentation. We request
a full refund of tuition fees and compensation."
On the other hand, the courts require you to consider Alternative
Dispute Resolution
"Until recently, if you had a legal problem, you would normally have
gone to a court or tribunal in what is often called 'litigation'.
While this is still a common way of sorting out such problems,
individuals often find that going to court is expensive and can be
stressful.
There are now a number of other ways of sorting out complaints and
legal problems, including things like arbitration, mediation and
ombudsmen schemes. These are often called 'alternative dispute
resolution' (ADR) schemes.
Court rules require you to think about whether alternative dispute
resolution is a better way to reach an agreement before going to
court. If you refuse to consider this, you may not get your costs
back, or the court may order you to pay the other party's costs, even
if you win the case.
(http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/questions/
index.htm)"
ADR was available to us through the scheme provided by the Office of
the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), which came
into operation as a voluntary scheme on 29 March 2004. Per 1 January
2005 all qualifying institutions of higher education are required to
comply with the Rules of the Scheme.(see also: www.oiaorg.uk)
The key features, from the 'Introduction to the Student Complaints
Scheme':
· free to students
· covers higher education institutions
· deals with a wide range of complaints but not admissions or academic
judgement
· students must first complete internal complaints procedures
· time limits apply
This was exactly what we had been looking for, or was it?
(to be continued)