Students want right to sue over grades
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Your support makes all the difference.STUDENTS SHOULD be given the right to have university essays remarked and to hire solicitors to pursue complaints against academics, says a report to be issued this month.
The National Union of Students is calling for a new national ombudsman to govern higher education as part of wholesale reform of the way universities deal with disputes.
It said students were now fee-paying customers and should get the same rights as other consumers, and accused academics of holding on to antiquated practices.
Student leaders believe the number of complaints and appeals will increase sharply as more and more students have to pay tuition fees.
Andrew Pakes, the union's president, said: "It is not a fair deal for students. It's certainly not professional and not independent. That's why we want an independent ombudsman in which students can have confidence. Now, with tuition fees, students are consumers and they have a right to quality customer care."
Examples cited by the union included the case of a mature student who discovered his course had been cancelled.
Universities said guidelines had been issued to help academics improve their appeals procedures, but insisted that independent institutions should not be forced to adopt a national system.
A union report, due to be published later this month, found that none of the universities with formal appeals procedures was prepared to allow students to question academic judgements.
A quarter of the 50 universities surveyed did not allow students to appeal against grades awarded for continuous assessment.
Only half permitted students to appeal against grades on the basis of bias or prejudice. The report said: "The NUS believes that this archaic system, with its unequal treatment of students, causes confusion and is inherently unfair. We feel that the ideal system would be for any new academic appeals system to be universal in its application."
The survey found that more than half the student unions believed complaints procedures did not reflect the principles of natural justice, while two- thirds felt there was not enough external scrutiny of appeals.
Universities are coming under increasing pressure to maintain standards after the introduction of tuition fees of up to pounds 1,000 a year in September.
Academics are working on the first subject "benchmarks", designed to lay out what students can expect from their degree course.
The report also calls for students to be given access to marked examination scripts and to have the right to demand they are remarked by an independent external assessor.
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